Please can we have separate forums so that people who like fans of the individual D&D campaign settings published by TSR can find information about them.
(I think that Spelljammer has the most threads at the moment, so if you can only do one at a time, I'd suggest doing that now, and doing the rest as the amount of threads about each setting goes up.)
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=260
This forum is for the discussing the possibility of these worlds updated to 4e. (I think.)
We've already got them.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=260
This forum is for the discussing the possibility of these worlds updated to 4e. (I think.)
That is a dead link. At least it is now.
But anyhoo, if 4th edition is going to bring back one campaign setting per year, I would have thought it would make sense to keep the interest in those settings going.
so far as i can tell, we aren't even getting as many posts in this entire combined forum as there used to be in the dark sun section alone. most of the settings that got lumped in together have basically just died off for the most part, and i can't honestly say that i really see that kind of traffic ever coming back.
the damage has been done, and people have chosen to spend their time elsewhere. the market research that wizards *could* have gained by simply maintaining these boards is basically lost to them. instead, people are going to choose to spend time elsewhere, in places where they can discuss the settings they want to discuss without having to wade through half a dozen other settings...
in the meanwhile, people who are interested in learning more about the 'other settings' here, are basically going to find not much in terms of a community that can answer questions and share experiences, which means that any possible free advertising resulting from board discussions here has been reduced as well.
congratulations WotC, you've devalued your own intellectual property. hope you don't mind when you run out of settings to revive at year 4 because you killed off all the discussion about all the other ones, and there's not enough interest even from diehard fans to justify it.
http://www.lajzar.co.uk/bb/index.php
Uh... would this be a bad time to plug the forums I created in response to wtoc/gleemax's decision to merge the boards?
http://www.lajzar.co.uk/bb/index.php
It's never a bad time for that!
The merging of all the settings has really changed the 'atmosphere' here. I like having people discussing various older settings but the lack of any organization or overview is a real killer.
That is a dead link. At least it is now.
But anyhoo, if 4th edition is going to bring back one campaign setting per year, I would have thought it would make sense to keep the interest in those settings going.
funny how a WizO doesn't know that - can they figure out now why we might be just a teensy bit annoyed?
than 550 treads....
How can you expect anyone to find specific info on a setting? Could you at least separate the forum by corresponding editions: Basic+, 1st, 2nd & 3.
The merging of all the settings has really changed the 'atmosphere' here. I like having people discussing various older settings but the lack of any organization or overview is a real killer.
funny how a WizO doesn't know that - can they figure out now why we might be just a teensy bit annoyed?
How can you expect anyone to find specific info on a setting? Could you at least separate the forum by corresponding editions: Basic+, 1st, 2nd & 3.
Guys, I don't think they even care.
The attitude WotC has been displaying is a kin to that of a crack dealer - if the company pushes it people will buy it... no matter what "it" may be.
I've looked over fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Tried to play Saga edition Star Wars and have come to the conclusion what they have done is a large step backwards in game development, plus they have aimed at the lowest common intellectual denomination.
For that I only purchase used 3.5 books, or other game systems. Either way Wizards of the Coast doesn’t get a
penny out of me. 
Ah yes... The stupid masses arguments again... Don't leave the game open to random non-geeks. No offence, but your settings are for much minor things in the grand scheme of things - never too popular to start, or old. Nothing personal.
Orignally posted by Rhialto
Funny thing.... our minor, insignificant settings, they kept the gaming industry alive for over a decade, possibly longer, depending on how you count it.
I don't think any of the posters looking at these "minor, insignificant settings" wants any special treatment, we just want to be able to find posts related to our setting of choice with out having to wade through pages of other posts.
I am so sorry I came back to these forums after as long as I have been away. They merged all these retired settings into a single forum. Yeah . . . this is going to make me want to come to the WotC forums for my favorite settings.
What a disaster. Upon all the other massive headaches heaped us through DDI and Gleemax . . . wasn't this supposed to be getting better than before? :raincloud
Are there any decent (well-trafficked) unofficial forums for Dark Sun, Mystara, and Greyhawk.
Maybe everyone should head back to the mailing lists for the respective worlds. At least the mailing lists haven't been blended together! YET!
Are there any decent (well-trafficked) unofficial forums for Dark Sun, Mystara, and Greyhawk.
Heya Eric!
There's the multi-world mashup with sanely separated sections at the Piazza.
And specifically for DarkSun, there's athas.org's own Arena.
Maybe everyone should head back to the mailing lists for the respective worlds. At least the mailing lists haven't been blended together! YET!
No kidding!
Heya Eric!
'sup! I'm bookmarking that Piazza site.
And specifically for DarkSun, there's athas.org's own Arena.
Huh, I thought official fan sites couldn't do forums that competed with WotC's . . . I suppose now that the specific forums were junked in favor on the blended forums an argument could be made there is no conflict. Or did WotC change their position on the matter?
Huh, I thought official fan sites couldn't do forums that competed with WotC's . . .
Despite the above rule, Birthright.net has hosted its own BR forums for years without problem, so I have no clue what they're allowed to do or not, especially with the new WotC forum organization. No one from the templarate, to my knowledge, has commented on the situation.
WOTC needs to pull it's head out of it's ass and add back the Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Mystara, Ravenloft, etc forums nice and neat.
Public Relations is PRICELESS, only soon-to-be out of work folk overlook it.
I know this won't be the fault of many poor souls working on this, like the Wiz-Os.
But WOTC is a *service* industry: bad public relations is totally unacceptable, because good public relations is vital to your profit.
Odler gamers have kids...older gamers have money. Kids become D&Ders.
Excluding folk = loss of profit...
This is so basic it's obvious ot anyone with any practical education of the real world.
A Wiz-O's tiem spent moderating these forums is repaid by folk BUYING WOTC PRODUCTS.
Singelhandedly, this kack handed balls up, has PO'd off numerous consumers. I'd suspect many hundred if not a couple of thousand.
So, how many folk gave a hearty "get stuffed!" to WOTC and didn't buy 4th ed because of this, hm?
Sorry for the rant, I love 4th ed, love D&D, appreciate the Wiz-Os (probably aggrravating) work here.
But this forum merger has been MORONIC.
There seems a total dicotomy between the game developers and the pathetic mess the Digital side of things has been.
Somebody, somewhere in WOTC needs their ass fired, or to admit this has been a glorious mess on the order of "A Bridge Too Far", and get a coherent management startegy in place, ASAP!
Where the hell is Meepo when ya need him, eh? ;)
We've already got them.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=260
This forum is for the discussing the possibility of these worlds updated to 4e. (I think.)
Okay, first, as pointed out already, Dox's link doesn't work (at least not right now).
Second, I note that he says the forum he's trying to point us to is for discussing worlds to be updated to 4E, and that's not what the OP was asking about.
Third, even if there were a separate forum or even a single thread in another forum devoted to deciding whether or not to split some or all of the "Other Published Worlds" back into separate forums, wouldn't posting it there instead of here drive down the number of active threads here, making it even less likely that any of these worlds would get their own forum?
This has been a total, unmitigated PR DISASTER!
Evidence of this has been peppered throughout this forum, but if someone were looking for a small sampling of the discontent bred by the merger decision, I'd recommend looking here. You could also look here and here, and to some extent, here.
-Once traffic reaches circa 25+ active threads per day, this thread will merit being split into two. Until then, however, it will remain one.
-Forum traffic can be monitored in the D&D Community Business thread.
we understand the policy; we don't agree with it.
-Some people apparently don't, because threads on this topic still pop up, sporadically.
we understand the policy; we don't agree with it. If following a policy results in harm to your brand with no benefit, then following the policy is dumb. WotC is making a serious mistake. Oh and it is serious, because as many people know, lurkers tend to outnumber posters by 100 to 1. Seriously. So if we see that a few dozen people have stopped posting that means that thousands of people are no longer reading threads. What is the gain? Nothing really.
Well said.
From the perspective of the Mystara forum, this is quite ironic, as we were reaching an activity level that was higher than ever before. Compared to the other worlds, Dark Sun was the only forum more active than us based on post count. Ofcourse, we had no idea that the powers that be were monitoring threads rather than posts. Had we known I am sure our posting patterns would have been very different.
Oh well, we have successfully moved to the Piazza and are thriving there, but IMO it would have been better for WotC to have the old school discussions here as they did bring more people into buying WotC books.
I am not surprised that people who are fans only of the Forgotten Realms fail to understand our position, but that is their loss.
Havard
-Some people apparently don't, because threads on this topic still pop up, sporadically.
Um . . . (let this sink in) because we don't agree with it. Understanding the rationale does not mean we must agree. In fact, merging the forums together will absolutely reduce thread production.
And who decide the arbitrary measure of "thread count"? Why not post count? If we knew the measure we could certainly pollute the forums with meaningless threads to pump the count up.
Lastly, what's the point in splitting this forum in to two if the count gets high enough. Meaningless nonsense that is. What, Dark Sun, Birthright, Spelljammer, Greyhawk goes in one forum and Mystara, Dragonlance, Planescape, Al Qadim go in the other?
Merging these forums is going to steeply diminish the the post and thread production of all.
In fact, merging the forums together will absolutely reduce thread production.
-Ironic that in other sections, the opposite is true.
And who decide the arbitrary measure of "thread count"? Why not post count? If we knew the measure we could certainly pollute the forums with meaningless threads to pump the count up.
-The people who are in charge, who understand the difference between actual threads, and meaningless ones, mind you.
Lastly, what's the point in splitting this forum in to two if the count gets high enough. Meaningless nonsense that is. What, Dark Sun, Birthright, Spelljammer, Greyhawk goes in one forum and Mystara, Dragonlance, Planescape, Al Qadim go in the other?
-Why split it into sections like that? That's silly. A section to discuss the lore of these settings, and tips for DMing/playing in these settings makes much more sense.
Merging these forums is going to steeply diminish the the post and thread production of all.
-Because most people who posted here were very resistant to change, and left, yes, this is true. Nearly everywhere else, the opposite is true. There is more posting going on than in the past.
-As has been stated time and time again, the individual campaign boards were merged into one because they did not have, individually, enough traffic to merit being kept individual, when WotC began condensing/merging/changing all of the boards.
-Once traffic reaches circa 25+ active threads per day, this thread will merit being split into two. Until then, however, it will remain one.
-Forum traffic can be monitored in the D&D Community Business thread.
I know you've said this before, but what I've never seen adequately explained is why they've set up this traffic-based merit requirement. What is the difference to them? Is that much easier to patrol one congested forum than several slower ones? Is there some technological barrier?
And what WotC needs to ask is whether their reason for doing this is worth all the bad blood it has bought them. People are leaving the WotC forums because of this, and WotC has to ask whether it is also losing those people's business. At the very least, they're unlikely to subscribe to D&Di, and they may even decide not to buy the books.
-Why split it into sections like that? That's silly. A section to discuss the lore of these settings, and tips for DMing/playing in these settings makes much more sense.
Note that that's not at all what people want. That still leaves the worlds bunched together.
-Because most people who posted here were very resistant to change, and left, yes, this is true. Nearly everywhere else, the opposite is true. There is more posting going on than in the past.
This comes off as very elitist and it completely ignores what people here have been complaining about - and why they have been leaving. It's not that we're "resistant to change" - we're unhappy about THIS PARTICULAR change.
I know you've said this before, but what I've never seen adequately explained is why they've set up this traffic-based merit requirement. What is the difference to them? Is that much easier to patrol one congested forum than several slower ones? Is there some technological barrier?
-It does make it easier for moderation, correct. And, while I am not computer whiz, it only follows logic that it costs less for them (money, internet resources, whatever) to have a single board for these settings, instead of, what was it? Six? Seven?
Note that that's not at all what people want. That still leaves the worlds bunched together.
-They are not going to be unmerged, unless they can meet the layed out benchmarks, none of which met them when the considerations for what was to be merged and what was not to be merged was being considered.
This comes off as very elitist and it completely ignores what people here have been complaining about - and why they have been leaving. It's not that we're "resistant to change" - we're unhappy about THIS PARTICULAR change.
-I am the FL of the Forgotten Realms section. We had it worse: six fairly active boards merged into one, because none of those six met the benchmark of 25+ active threads per day. Now, we have a single thread that, on any given day, has anywhere between 30-80 active threads on it, per day. People haven't left, despite the clear majority being angry, and instead, are contributing as they always have, and as a result, the Forgotten Realms section is going to be split. In theory, because of that participation, the split boards could receive a split, should it merit it.
-I am the FL of the Forgotten Realms section. We had it worse: six fairly active boards merged into one, because none of those six met the benchmark of 25+ active threads per day. Now, we have a single thread that, on any given day, has anywhere between 30-80 active threads on it, per day. People haven't left, despite the clear majority being angry, and instead, are contributing as they always have, and as a result, the Forgotten Realms section is going to be split.
Significantly different. There, you had one community with six forums of organization put together. You ended up still having one community (albeit a very busy one) discussing a unified (though less organized) subject matter.
Here, we ended up with over half a dozen communities thrown together in a quagmire of unrelated threads. WotC has no sense of the value of fostering communities of gamers and hobbyists. When there are periods of time when there is no game to play, it is the communities that keep people interested in the hobby.
you're making a bunch of friends with the Mystara crowd over here, LK
-Are you stalking me? ;)
-Are you stalking me? ;)
Hey, I have Mystara books, my friend. I have posted on the Mystara boards. In fact, I have accounts on some of the unofficial boards as well. So who is stalking who?
Hey, I have Mystara books, my friend. I have posted on the Mystara boards. In fact, I have accounts on some of the unofficial boards as well. So who is stalking who?
-Just making sure. We just keep running into each other.
A purely entertainment based example, two years ago a local (Colorado) classic rock radio station (bumped down to 5th on popularity), converted their line-up to a hip-hop/rap line-up. Why, the board of directors told them to (a board based in Florida). Last year during a poll of what radio stations were being listened to the station had dropped to third from the bottom (out of 18 stations at the time). This years poll is has yet to be taken, but from what I can tell so far they’re still in the lesser 50%, no body listens to them. While the top three are Country, Classic Rock and Hard Rock.
WotC/Hasbro needs to remember, this is not a simple corporate number crunching exercise - they provide a service to entertain, failing that people move on to those who will entertain them as they prefer to be entertained. You need to pay attention to as many fans as you have access to – or you loose them to those who will - hence we complain.
-Just making sure. We just keep running into each other.
You have nearly 23,000 posts and I have over 3700. What are the odds?
-It does make it easier for moderation, correct. And, while I am not computer whiz, it only follows logic that it costs less for them (money, internet resources, whatever) to have a single board for these settings, instead of, what was it? Six? Seven?.
I've commented on this before, and it seems you might not have read prior posts:
1) Moderation: Forum moderation is totally unaffected by the number of distinct forums. New posts are often read in an RSS style feed, often without context unless needed. Reported posts are emailed to moderators, and they can delete almost instantly. And yes, I have moderated on a couple boards before, as well as set one up.
2) Computer Resources: Computer Resources are mostly unaffected* by the number of distinct forums. RAM is unaffected. Hard Drive Space is unaffected. CPU usage is unaffected. Network bandwidth is unaffected. Power usage is unaffected. Instead, resources (including the resource of time for the downtime needed) were used to move things around. And yes, I am a systems administrator by profession (computer server guy).
This really seems like a pointy haired boss within Gleemax needed to justify his existence to a pointy haired boss in WotC by showing that there were X number of forums with Y amount of traffic; a Z% increase during his watch!
* "mostly" because there's insignificant changes database-wise which have no effect on overall cost in money or human time
I've commented on this before, and it seems you might not have read prior posts:
...
Thanks for the insight.
We're being feed nonsensical excuses for why things have been done and some people are dumb-founded as to why so many of us are feeling dumped on? Take away the posts of complaints and there is almost no activity here. The Mystara forum alone was more active than this one is now.
[referring to the merger declining post activity here]
-Ironic that in other sections, the opposite is true.
This isn't accurate either. The busiest forums are the ones that have arguing and flame-fests such as the General Discussion forum. Others that are the result of mergers have also declined in combined post rates.
I've commented on this before, and it seems you might not have read prior posts:
1) Moderation: Forum moderation is totally unaffected by the number of distinct forums. New posts are often read in an RSS style feed, often without context unless needed. Reported posts are emailed to moderators, and they can delete almost instantly. And yes, I have moderated on a couple boards before, as well as set one up.
2) Computer Resources: Computer Resources are mostly unaffected* by the number of distinct forums. RAM is unaffected. Hard Drive Space is unaffected. CPU usage is unaffected. Network bandwidth is unaffected. Power usage is unaffected. Instead, resources (including the resource of time for the downtime needed) were used to move things around. And yes, I am a systems administrator by profession (computer server guy).
This really seems like a pointy haired boss within Gleemax needed to justify his existence to a pointy haired boss in WotC by showing that there were X number of forums with Y amount of traffic; a Z% increase during his watch!
* "mostly" because there's insignificant changes database-wise which have no effect on overall cost in money or human time
These are the things I've suspected all along. There doesn't appear to be any significant cost savings resulting from the merger, and I don't think WotC properly accounted for the cost in angry and disaffected fans when it performed its cost/benefit analysis on the merger.
-The people who are in charge, who understand the difference between actual threads, and meaningless ones, mind you.
Does this mean that threads like this one, discussing not "Other Published Worlds" but rather the forum merger, will be excluded when considering how busy this forum is? I can see discounting empty threads that consist of nothing but "bump" after "bump," but that's not what we've got here. If they're going to decide that meaningless threads don't count, I hope it's a simple matter of looking at whether the thread contains any content or not, and not an evaluation of the worth of the content (which necessarily depends upon the values of the evaluator).
---------
Tom Mahaney
This isn't accurate either. The busiest forums are the ones that have arguing and flame-fests such as the General Discussion forum. Others that are the result of mergers have also declined in combined post rates.
-Hardly. Tell me, do you follow the forum traffic? The Forgotten Realms section, for instance, has had it's posting rate rise exponentially since the merger, such that is is constantly in the top five more or less every day, and they are hardly filled with "arguing and flame-fests".
Does this mean that threads like this one, discussing not "Other Published Worlds" but rather the forum merger, will be excluded when considering how busy this forum is? I can see discounting empty threads that consist of nothing but "bump" after "bump," but that's not what we've got here. If they're going to decide that meaningless threads don't count, I hope it's a simple matter of looking at whether the thread contains any content or not, and not an evaluation of the worth of the content (which necessarily depends upon the values of the evaluator).
-Being as that I am not one of the people in charge, I can't tell you what they think (or the lack thereof).
-
-Being as that I am not one of the people in charge
huh? surely that can't be true
huh? surely that can't be true
-Unfortunately, right?
-Hardly. Tell me, do you follow the forum traffic? The Forgotten Realms section, for instance, has had it's posting rate rise exponentially since the merger, such that is is constantly in the top five more or less every day, and they are hardly filled with "arguing and flame-fests".
Comparing the single combined forum's posting rates to the total that the separated forums had, not including posts that were/are talking about the merger or the 'lets fill the forum with posts to get things separated again' theme, then yes, I do think they've dropped off.
However, FR has been probably one of the least affected forums, and attitudes there are generally very good. My attitude would be considerably better if we still had our own, setting-specific forum.
Just so you know, I don't hate WotC for doing this; it's only a corporation after all. I'm not anti-4E and the digitalization of Dungeon and Dragon Magazines didn't bother me either. I just think they've really dropped the ball in their handling of these forums because this is where the company directly services their market and potential customers.
I've commented on this before, and it seems you might not have read prior posts:
So I'm not the only one who is tired of LK's aggravating pro-combination cheerleading, repetition of facts he's already been corrected on, and complete dismissiveness towards the complaints of our communities?
I'm also really sick of his trying to make the exception the rule: if the forum changes produce more traffic, as he argues, then why hasn't the same happened here? Despite a different result elsewhere, clearly these changes have not produced more traffic here -- there is less posting in the Other Worlds section than before. Shrugging off the difficulties and problems this change has caused our communities because his wasn't affected negatively, or was affected positively, is beyond rude.
-Being as that I am not one of the people in charge, I can't tell you what they think (or the lack thereof).
I've added emphasis to the part that I think explains what has happened here.
You know, while I'm at it, I think I'll just quote my other post:
I don't think so. For the most part our high level goal is to maintain and grow our community. Our goal with the forums is to increase the anount of good quality discussion. The way these numbers come into play is that we want people to see healthy and active forums each time they visit, and having too many active threads in one forum will make it tough to keep on top of everything being said. On the other hand, having only a handful of active threads in each forum can give the impression that the forums are dead.
I don't know why this explanation wasn't part of the first post. It's a lot easier for people to understand and discuss the merger decision when we know the reasons WHY the decision was made. Okay, now we see: they don't want low-activity boards because they don't want boards that look dead. Fine.
But what the powers-that-be don't seem to understand is that some particular mergers -- and here I am specifically thinking of the Other Published Worlds forum -- are succeeding only in killing the forums and driving away posters, thus having exactly the opposite effect compared to what was intended.
Numerous people have posted in the Other Published Worlds forum only to express their disgust over the merger and to report their intention to move their viewing and posting elsewhere. Also, I believe that at least one new website was created, and I assume that other existing sites have absorbed other disaffected posters.
I'd like to suggest that criteria be considered beyond the raw numbers. When the new boards were set up, there were some forums created based on anticipated interest, not through the method now being used (of splitting up busy forums). Sometimes, you need to move a plant into a bigger pot so it has room to grow. Or, if you're a movie buff, then think of this: "If you build it, they will come."
It may be too late to salvage any goodwill from the Other Published Worlds forum, but what would be the harm in trying? Especially if these are the people that you hope to interest in converting to 4E and buying the upcoming conversions of their favorite settings. Don't wait until the 4E versions are due to be released, and then expect traffic on the newly-split-out forums for those worlds. With some of these people, once they're gone, they're probably gone for good.
I know that one of the goals of 4E is to bring in new blood, but do you really want to drive off all of the old blood? Sounds like a sure recipe for death by exsanguination....
Here's a link to the whole thread, the first post of which is Gamer_Zero setting forth the criteria for forum splitting.
I've added emphasis to the part that I think explains what has happened here.
-That's why I included it.
Comparing the single combined forum's posting rates to the total that the separated forums had, not including posts that were/are talking about the merger or the 'lets fill the forum with posts to get things separated again' theme, then yes, I do think they've dropped off.
-They haven't. As I said, I am the FL of the Forgotten Realms section. There's a lot more work for me now than there was before our 6 sections were merged into one. Before they were merged, there were, on average, about 25 or so active threads every day. Since they were merged, there are, on average, about 40 or so active threads now. There are no threads designed to "fill the forum with posts to get things separated again", being as threads that are bumped continue on with the conversation that the thread is/was about- meaning that it's legitimate.
So I'm not the only one who is tired of LK's aggravating pro-combination cheerleading, repetition of facts he's already been corrected on, and complete dismissiveness towards the complaints of our communities?
-It's very simple: There's specific benchmarks placed. If the benchmarks are reached, 'A' happens. If the benchmarks are not reached, 'B' happens. When the benchmarks are not reached, and 'B' happens, people get all sore. Until the benchmarks are reached, 'B' will continue to happen, regardless of everyone being sore. Instead of working to make 'A' happen, rather than 'B', people continue to be sore. What's so hard about this?
I'm also really sick of his trying to make the exception the rule: if the forum changes produce more traffic, as he argues, then why hasn't the same happened here? Despite a different result elsewhere, clearly these changes have not produced more traffic here -- there is less posting in the Other Worlds section than before. Shrugging off the difficulties and problems this change has caused our communities because his wasn't affected negatively, or was affected positively, is beyond rude.
-And, as I said, the reason for this is because of people being sore, rather than working to "solve" the problem. What is there to feel pity for, when, by and large, this is because of people going "nyah, nyah"? Rather than simply leaving, had people stayed, and continued posting in this section, the possibility of the benchmark being reached, and this section being a candidate for being split would have been extremely feasible.
So I'm not the only one who is tired of LK's aggravating pro-combination cheerleading, repetition of facts he's already been corrected on, and complete dismissiveness towards the complaints of our communities?
Let's not be too hard on Karsus. He's not the decisionmaker - heck, he's not even the appointed messenger; he's just taking it upon himself to try to explain what the situation is and what happens from here. What has frustrated me since the boards reorganization is that no one could say WHY the changes were made: WHY traffic-based benchmarks? WHY lump all of the other settings into the same forum? WHY NOT leave each setting with its own forum?
If you look in the Community Business forum, you'll see that Karsus is just as frustrated as the rest of us.
-It's very simple: There's specific benchmarks placed. If the benchmarks are reached, 'A' happens. If the benchmarks are not reached, 'B' happens.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with what I stated about your attitude. This is simply more of the same dismissive "ignoring-the-point" responses you've been engaging in since the minute these communities were pointlessly combined.
-And, as I said, the reason for this is because of people being sore, rather than working to "solve" the problem. What is there to feel pity for, when, by and large, this is because of people going "nyah, nyah"? Rather than simply leaving, had people stayed, and continued posting in this section, the possibility of the benchmark being reached, and this section being a candidate for being split would have been extremely feasible.
I suspect "debating" with you is moot, as each time anyone points out the counter-arguments to your repeated argument, you dismiss/conveniently ignore them and instead choose to keep parroting variations of the above...but let's see what happens: the point is we shouldn't HAVE to meet an arbitrary benchmark. Because it is the situation itself that is the problem, not our reaction to it.
We are thus tired of the elitist attitude showcased by your refusal to see the situation from the position of those whose communities were literally torpedoed by this move on the part of WotC and Gleemax, as the answer to "How dare you sink our ship!" is not your haughty suggestion to "Swim better!"
Given past experience, I suspect this will fall on deaf ears and you will continue to act as though mystified by the 'emotional, nonsensical' reaction you are receiving to your 'simple, rational' answer.
That reaction is because it is the situation itself that is the problem, and our reaction to it is healthy and valid. We will not merely meekly go along for the ride, for we do not have to accept this as the way it must be: we do not have to swim better when the solution is not swimming better, because the problem isn't swimming. The problem is THEY BLEW UP THE BOAT. The solution is giving us another boat because they pointlessly blew ours up and could easily rectify such.
Elsewise, the situation is such that we customers are being told to GFY by WotC: "Oh, we closed your forums? Jump through hoops for us and we'll reopen them!" Which, from a business standpoint is absolute nonsense: it's ****-poor customer service/attitude on par with the final days of TSR and its witch-queen. It is so because--and while I'd prefer not to--I can take my time and money elsewhere (as well as my bad experience, which can be transmitted easily by word-of-mouth), and in the final accounting that's not my loss.
If you look in the Community Business forum, you'll see that Karsus is just as frustrated as the rest of us.
Noted.
But I will also note I haven't seen any of that here.
I have seen a lot of "Well, gee, I don't see why you don't you just bend down and take it without complaining. Go with the flow?" Which is not an attitude I, and I suspect most others, cop well to, and hence my deep aggravation towards the suggestion*.
(* For what should be pretty obvious reasons: we have every right to complain and scream and not just submit graciously to damaging alterations and arbitrary rules as we're being told we should.)
-And thus, my point is made.
As is mine, sadly.
Noted.
But I will also note I haven't seen any of that here.
I have seen a lot of "Well, gee, I don't see why you don't you just bend down and take it without complaining. Go with the flow?" Which is not an attitude I, and I suspect most others, cop well to, and hence my deep aggravation towards the suggestion*.
(* For what should be pretty obvious reasons: we have every right to complain and scream and not just submit graciously to damaging alterations and arbitrary rules as we're being told we should.)
And I agree. I've been complaining from the start, and from the start was frustrated with the lack of any attempt, by anyone, to explain why things had to be the way they are. Lacking that, I was left to conclude that there IS NO GOOD REASON. Now I found a post in which some small explanation is offered (I quoted it above), but I think there are factors that WotC has failed to consider. Sure, they'll end up with boards that look busy, but they'll accomplish that by driving away the people that used to post in the separate Other Worlds forums and be left with a single forum with minimal activity.
I give Lord Karsus credit for coming in here. I can't say that I've seen Gamer_Zero post anywhere in this forum, let alone directly address our concerns. But not all of us are willing to accept what we've been handed and make the best of it, like he is; I think it's worth putting up a fuss to try to get the powers-that-be to see the sense of our point of view.
It will be very funny, in a way, when this forum drops below the arbitrary 25 "quality" threads per day. Surely they will stick to their guns and have to merge it with something else equally unrelated as each of these settings were to each other?
-They are already far below that. The average since the boards were modified is 11 posts per day.
-Many other sections are below as well, but aren't merged. The DDI section, for example. But, this section will never be merged or deleted, because it is a "base", to to speak. It, by itself, cannot be broken down any further. So, too, is this section.
-They are already far below that. The average since the boards were modified is 11 posts per day.
I should have specified below 25 for an extended, sustained duration.
I am also wondering what a before/after count would tally up. We all seem to agree that there were far greater numbers of threads before the merge.
I guess we can all also agree that WotC's board managers must be pleased-enough with the result of dramatically reduced postings by the fans of their out-of-print material. Pleased-enough, because otherwise they'd go out of their way to make it easier for fans of settings to gather together in like-minded discussion. That they aren't it seems clear that we can all agree that the WotC board managers value their own load over meeting the fans needs.
I should have specified below 25 for an extended, sustained duration.
-That's six weeks of monitoring. We have only six weeks of monitoring, so far.
I am also wondering what a before/after count would tally up. We all seem to agree that there were far greater numbers of threads before the merge.
-Far greater, perhaps, but what we are seeing here is a product of everyone's own doing.
-That said, from what I remember of many of the old boards, they weren't exactly bustling with activity. I frequented only a few of them (Spelljammer, Planescape and Oriental Adventures, primarily, but went to others every so often), and there wasn't very much going on. For example, I recall posting something at the al-Qadim section, and noticing that, on the first page of posts, there was stuff from December 2007 still appearing. And, this was around March or April.
There are no threads designed to "fill the forum with posts to get things separated again", being as threads that are bumped continue on with the conversation that the thread is/was about- meaning that it's legitimate.
No, sorry, not that they were 'designed' to fill the forums, but were for discussing the need to continue/have many threads to show WotC that there is enough activity to warrant a forum split. It was legitimate conversation but it has been spawned by the fact the forums were merged. Look here even on this forum and see how much of the discussion has been about the merger or resulting from the merger.
Like I said though, the FR forum is perhaps the best case scenario on the entire WotC boards.
-And, as I said, the reason for this is because of people being sore, rather than working to "solve" the problem.
Oh, we did work together and came to a very satisfactory "solution". ;)
-Many other sections are below as well, but aren't merged. The DDI section, for example. But, this section will never be merged or deleted, because it is a "base", to to speak. It, by itself, cannot be broken down any further. So, too, is this section.
So, if I understand this correctly, they are still willing to have very slow forums after making all these changes which were intended to ensure forums were quite active? And the net effect is they've damaged relations with patrons? I'm thinking I'm done discussing the forum's situation and will stick with D&D topics.
Like I said though, the FR forum is perhaps the best case scenario on the entire WotC boards.
-Through some hard work by myself, if I might puff my feathers for a moment or two. :D
Oh, we did work together and came to a very satisfactory "solution". ;)
-Well, I meant that in the context of this site, specifically.
So, if I understand this correctly, they are still willing to have very slow forums after making all these changes which were intended to ensure forums were quite active?
-Correct. Using the example I used before, there is a section on the boards dedicated to the DDI stuff. WotC wants/needs this section to be there, so, regardless of the traffic, they remain. This 'Other Worlds' section, for instance. WotC wants/needs this section to be here, so even if traffic fell to two posts per day, this section wouldn't be merged/deleted.
And the net effect is they've damaged relations with patrons? I'm thinking I'm done discussing the forum's situation and will stick with D&D topics.
-Only in this section, for the most part.
i don't have to stay here. WotC is not offering an exclusive service. i don't have to dig through all the stuff i'm not interested here, i can take my time, my ideas, my thoughts, elsewhere.
and why should i bother trying to bring activity to a point where we get a forum split? please, do tell... how are they going to split these forums in two in such a way as to improve the situation at all? because i'm not seeing it. this forum needs to be split into one section for each campaign setting if it is to improve at all in the way we want it to. so now we don't need 40 or 50 active threads in a day, we need about 200 (ravenloft, greyhawk, dark sun, planescape, spelljammer, mystara, birthright, oriental adventures... that's 8 right there, 25 threads each is 200) and we need to have them evenly split between those settings.
that isn't going to happen, realistically speaking. so why should i bother putting any effort into supporting the wizards forums, when i can just leave and go someplace else that actually cares enough to bother providing the kind of forum environment that will actually get people to stay.
it's a waste of time to put any effort into these boards. even the forums that had a lot of posts before the merger have now pretty much died down to nothing. it's not that hard to take a look at the number of posts (or active threads, if you prefer) right now, and realise that it is worse than what there was when the various settings were separate. and realistically, i don't think those numbers are coming back. we have discussions going elsewhere right now, why should we choose to move them here?
i don't have to stay here. WotC is not offering an exclusive service. i don't have to dig through all the stuff i'm not interested here, i can take my time, my ideas, my thoughts, elsewhere.
-No, no you don't.
and why should i bother trying to bring activity to a point where we get a forum split?
-Why bother complaining about it?
please, do tell... how are they going to split these forums in two in such a way as to improve the situation at all? because i'm not seeing it. this forum needs to be split into one section for each campaign setting if it is to improve at all in the way we want it to. so now we don't need 40 or 50 active threads in a day, we need about 200 (ravenloft, greyhawk, dark sun, planescape, spelljammer, mystara, birthright, oriental adventures... that's 8 right there, 25 threads each is 200) and we need to have them evenly split between those settings.
-I already offered a realistic solution. Should the matter ever come up, it'd be up to the community to decide.
that isn't going to happen, realistically speaking. so why should i bother putting any effort into supporting the wizards forums, when i can just leave and go someplace else that actually cares enough to bother providing the kind of forum environment that will actually get people to stay.
it's a waste of time to put any effort into these boards. even the forums that had a lot of posts before the merger have now pretty much died down to nothing. it's not that hard to take a look at the number of posts (or active threads, if you prefer) right now, and realise that it is worse than what there was when the various settings were separate. and realistically, i don't think those numbers are coming back. we have discussions going elsewhere right now, why should we choose to move them here?
-As I said, the choice is up to you.
Should the matter ever come up, it'd be up to the community to decide.
I don't believe you.
This happened without the "community" deciding, much less being asked for input, why would they let the community decide anything ever after?
I don't believe you.
This happened without the "community" deciding, much less being asked for input, why would they let the community decide anything ever after?
-You don't visit the Community Business section very much, do you? There was, and still is, a lot of discussion about the merging, renaming, splitting, and so on, of the boards. Furthermore, I know I, personally, posted a message to the community here about, and linking to the discussions about the modification of the boards themselves.
-Why bother complaining about it?
I guess I can't speak for everyone, but I can tell you why [b]I'm[/b] complaining. It's the whole squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease thing. If we don't say anything, then the powers-that-be don't know that we're unhappy about the change. The way I see it, complaining is what kept the Golden Wyvern Adept feat and its ilk out of the 4E Player's Handbook.
I get what you're saying: work within the system, be constructive. I'm just questioning whether the system that's in place is everything it should be. It seems to me that some consequences were not considered or at least not anticipated. I'm hoping that someone in charge becomes aware of the matter and at least gives it some thought. AND THEN, it would be really great if they'd come in here and EXPLAIN things in a way that helps us understand why it needs to be like this.
I just said this in that thread in the Community Business forum, but I don't know how many people here have gone over there, so I'll say it again here: I think we'd be satisfied if there were an easy way to sort by setting, such as tabs like EN World has or a reliable way to use Search to do it. If there's really a good reason for the merger, would that be satisfactory middle ground?
I don't believe you.
This happened without the "community" deciding, much less being asked for input, why would they let the community decide anything ever after?
-You don't visit the Community Business section very much, do you? There was, and still is, a lot of discussion about the merging, renaming, splitting, and so on, of the boards. Furthermore, I know I, personally, posted a message to the community here about, and linking to the discussions about the modification of the boards themselves.
To be fair, I don't think he's talking about the discussions since the reorganization about what further changes to make. I think his point is that nobody asked if we were in favor of merging all of the other published settings into one forum. They just did it.
I get what you're saying: work within the system, be constructive.
-That's my policy. Things aren't going to be arbitrarily changed because a minority of people are suddenly lulled from their proverbial sleep, outraged, and then disappear. Might as well work with the system to get things changed in a manner more beneficial to everyone.
To be fair, I don't think he's talking about the discussions since the reorganization about what further changes to make. I think his point is that nobody asked if we were in favor of merging all of the other published settings into one forum. They just did it.
-The discussions at the Community Business thread were still there, regardless. My primary concern is, and was, the Forgotten Realms, and I argued in favor of retaining multiple sections. I'll admit, I don't recall saying anything in support or against merging the 'Other World' threads. But, no one else did, either. Which was more or less my point, there.
One day, three friends were standing on a dock having a conversation, then--for no discernible reason--the owner of the dock pushed one of the other men into the water and would not let him back on the dock.
The man in the water demanded the owner of the dock let him back on the dock but the dock's owner said "no". The man in the water could cling to the ladder, but could only climb back up if he would tread water for twenty-minutes.
The man thought and argued this was ridiculous, and wanted to know why (to which he received no answer). The second man on the dock suggested that the man start treading water if he wanted back up instead of "being sore" about the situation.
The man argued this was nonsense, there was no reason he should be forced to tread water, and that he would swim to the beach and go home instead, unless he was allowed back up on the dock.
The second man, who was neither in the lake nor being told he must tread water for twenty minutes, called the man in the water a coward and whiner for not just treading the water as the dock-owner demanded.
Instead of dealing with the ridiculous demands made by the owner of the dock and hauteur of the second man, who was neither in the lake nor being told he must tread water for twenty minutes, the man in the water turned around and swam to the nearby beach, and never spoke to the other two men again.
-Well, I meant that in the context of this site, specifically.
What you fail to grasp is that we aren't just "being sore" and leaving is a strategy for this site specifically. WotC wants the forums to be used, and they want its users to jump through certain hoops to have certain standard-elsewhere functionality; the forum-users also want to use the forums, but don't want to jump through those hoops for that functionality.
So our solution is to complain, not to bend over and take it. We have every right to tell the powers-that-be their changes and their proposed "solution" stinks and we want our functional discussion forums back. If that isn't acceptable, then we leave.
We are exercising the power of consumers to make demands of and then boycott a company if they refuse to capitulate or reasonably compromise to their customer's needs and desires.
You might think that's a terrible solution on our part, call it "whining" and tar those people who decide to go that route, even believe it will not accomplish a thing, but we all feel it is a better solution than submitting to bad policies like a bunch of kicked dogs (especially when we're being told to "deal" or being called "crybabies" in an underhanded way).
We don't NEED WotC or its forums. We'd LIKE to stay, but only if it meets our needs. So why capitulate just to stay? We'll see if we can solve this problem by complaining about the situation, refusing to accept the new policies as good policies, and leaving if WotC chooses to continue to ignore our concerns and issues and makes ridiculous demands.
So you can call attempting to follow the current forum-splitting rules a method of "solving the problem" all you'd like and suggest all else is pointless whining and crying and pouting, but we can, in return, call that singing the praises of being a whipped dog. It's about on par in terms of how denigrating and dismissive the description is.
We are not slaves to be told what to do to get our supper, nor are we "just being sore" for complaining and walking away from a bad situation (instead of being good little drones and submitting). We are not addicts who need our fix and will jump through hoops to get it, and thus why we we take exception to those hoops, regardless of what names you call us for doing so or how much you falsely suggest our method is "just empty whining" and "not a solution".
Because it is a solution: WotC wants us to use the forums. We will, assuming they return these forums to a usable state. If they do not, we will use other forums that meet our needs, depriving the local community WotC claims they wish to build of experienced and potential members and build that community somewhere else, or even take our money and time to other companies who are more responsive to their customers' needs and desires.
We would like to build that community here, but not under these conditions. So while there are times to work within the system to get what you want from those in power, there are also times to force those in power to change the system itself rather than capitulating to its demands.
Things aren't going to be arbitrarily changed because a minority of people are suddenly lulled from their proverbial sleep, outraged, and then disappear.
I've been an active member of these boards for many years. So have many of the others I have seen complaining or outright leaving.
Your insinuation that the only/majority of people making noises of disgust are a just bunch of people who never participated anyways and are just looking for a reason to be "outraged" is beyond insulting, and IMO your rhetoric has now gone beyond the verge of trolling with this on top of the other subtle sleights you keep dishing out.
(I also find your suggestive choice of the words "arbitrarily changed" in the above dismissal terribly ironic...)
-You don't visit the Community Business section very much, do you?
Never heard of it. My time I value for coming to share thoughts on settings I love with others who share my appreciation, or spending it with my family and my home. Not for spending it doing meta issues unrelated to my actual interest.
You may say, well that's what I get for not participating. Just like a citizen who never votes but then complains about elections. But in an election I can at least vote the bums out the next election . . . there's no vote here and will be no vote.
I've just gone and spent some time over on those forums, but I can't see that they actually changed their mind based on participant feedback. Lot of venting. though. Seems to reinforce my desire to not be bothered with meta issues.
Our view has been presented, and we´ll have to see what eventually comes out of this process. Personally, I will be using the Dark Sun forums at arena.athas.org from now on, but I will probably be checking in on this forum now and then. This seems to be the view of several of the veterans I have spoken to as well.
I would like to thank Lord Karsus for providing all of us Other Worlds (and especially Dark Sun) veterans with the information about the changes.... We have presented our case and Lord Karsus has been kind enough to respond to a lot of the points being made.
Moreover, Lord Karsus didn't have to come here. He's the forum lead of another forum. He's trying to help, and as far as I can tell, doing it entirely of his own free will. Given that he's doing this out of kindness, while the people whose job it is to run these forums have studiously avoided coming here and posting anything, I think he deserves some credit. I disagree with him, but respect what he's trying to do here.
WotC has pushed people away from here to other sites -- including at least one brand new one, if I am not mistaken. I don't think they anticipated the level of anger that the merger would generate, and the number of people who would simply leave.
I for one totally expected it and I raised it as a possibility when we were discussing on these boards what to do about the Other Worlds. Frankly, the level of rancor is decidedly less that I figured was going to happen.
If you're looking for boards where four posts a day on a board is sufficient, then yes, the Wizards boards are not for you. Wizards.community is not looking to have a monopoly on dead and dormant game lines. So yes, it was expected that people would leave and... it was hoped they'd find a home that could serve their needs, because these forums would not cater to them.
Why do people think that something should be all things to all people? It's not realistic. It's not useful. It's not productive. And it's actively bad business.
If anyone else wants to keep complaining in the hope that WotC will change its mind, more power to you. But I'm done. They did this with their eyes open. I don't think there's any point in discussing it further.
I would like to thank Lord Karsus for providing all of us Other Worlds (and especially Dark Sun) veterans with the information about the changes.
Don't do that. It will just enlarge he's already inflated ego. :P
Because most people who posted here were very resistant to change, and left, yes, this is true. Nearly everywhere else, the opposite is true. There is more posting going on than in the past.
That isn't a fair comparison. People are not leaving because they are "resistant to change". They are leaving because the new structure of the forums does not work.
The old forums allowed for discussions of individual campaign settings to occur at whatever pace that respective community desired. I'm not saying they were ideal, but the did do the job.
An uber-forum doesn't do the job because as one person posts something about one campaign setting they knock another post about another campaign setting off of the front page.
If this forum ever does pick up, what will happen is that one campaign seting will be less popular than others and then it will get pushed off of the front page. People surfing in will not see conversation occuring (about their preferred setting) so will assume that nobody here wants to talk about that setting. The only way that one individual community can survive here is to bump all the other communities off of the front page and claim this forum as their own.
We could do that. We could fight each other in some sort of Mad Max Thunderdome re-enactment. (Personally, I suspect the Mystara fans would win that sort of fight.) But we don't want to do that. We don't want a bump-war where the only way to boost up our favorite setting is to kill off the other communities.
And I am baffled by this reorganisation, because it is counter-intuative. I'm told that 4th edition is going to have this plan of bringing back a campaign setting every year. These forums, as they were, were the perfect place for people to start discussing what these old TSR settings and 4th edition could do together.
They needed building up - not tearing down. Some sort of WotC community liason person could have posted links in the forums, so that Dark Sun fans could have seen the great 4e content that has already come out. 4e fans could have come into these forums and spoken about taking the old 2e stuff and making conversions. It could all have built up to the day when the 4e products for each of the settings came out.
The current plan of an uber-community just does not work. It doesn't work for old setting fans. It doesn't work for WotCs new customers who want to find a different world to play D&D with. It doesn't work for WotC's long term 4e plans.
Given the amount of anti-WotC anger I've seen around the Internet (as well as some obviously untrue "WotC eats babies" rabbid nonsense) I can only assume that this merger is an attempt to get rid of any Grognards who don't like the current rules.
It's not that we're "resistant to change" - we're unhappy about THIS PARTICULAR change.
To true. We definately needed changes. I'm a fan of 3rd edition and, while I love the conversions being worked on by the individual official sites, I would loved to have seen more support for old products being converted to 3rd edition. Maybe we could have had an additional thread where the fan community could have worked through old stuff, converted things one at a time and then got them uploaded to the official sites.
Maybe the community liason people could have given us some assistance. Maybe the fan conversion efforts could have been tied in with the work of Dragon and Dungeon magazines and any 3e products that reused monsters from our settings. Have a look at the Creature Catalogue forums on ENWorld. They are great - they are exactly the sort of thing that our community needed (instead of pruning). A bit of 3rd edition love for these settings would have inspired interest in them and brought new visitors in.
But the different campaign settings are different topics and can't be mixed in a meaningful way. Conversions could probably be shared (to an extent) but the fluff needs to be kept separate.
3rd edition has gone over to the care of fans now, but this sort of strategy would work just as well for 4th edition as it would have for 3rd edition.
It does make it easier for moderation, correct. And, while I am not computer whiz, it only follows logic that it costs less for them (money, internet resources, whatever) to have a single board for these settings, instead of, what was it? Six? Seven?
Actually, I think you will find that moderators are from the individual communities. Their experience with individual settings meant that they could tell what people were talking about.
They are not going to be unmerged, unless they can meet the layed out benchmarks, none of which met them when the considerations for what was to be merged and what was not to be merged was being considered.
As others have said, it is impossible for the individual campaign settings to dig themselves out of the black hole that this forum is. The structure of this uber-forum means that I have to stomp on the Dark Sun or Mystara community to build up the Spelljammer community. But even if I did do that (and I don't want to stomp on other communities) we wouldn't qualify for an unmerger because they would be "too small".
This forum is the Hotel California of forums. Anything plonked in with us is doomed to be overwhelmed by general discussions and be forgotten.
I am the FL of the Forgotten Realms section. We had it worse: six fairly active boards merged into one, because none of those six met the benchmark of 25+ active threads per day. Now, we have a single thread that, on any given day, has anywhere between 30-80 active threads on it, per day. People haven't left, despite the clear majority being angry, and instead, are contributing as they always have, and as a result, the Forgotten Realms section is going to be split. In theory, because of that participation, the split boards could receive a split, should it merit it.
I am sorry, but Forgotten Realms has not got it worse that other settings.
You had six Forgotten Realms boards. I had one Spelljammer board. You have been reduced to 1/6th of your size. I have been reduced to no Spelljammer boards. I have nothing - you guys still have something.
This is why we are all complaining. We all had something - something small, but something real. Now we all have nothing. This uber-forum is useless.
And while I'm on the subject of Forgotten Realms, you had products. You had website presence. You have so many more things that us that market the Realms and draw people in.
I've got nothing against FR (and have some great FR products), but with these forums having no publicity machine pushing them, it is a miracle that the fan communities are strong enough to keep them going. And we have settings here that date back to the days when Forgotten Realms didn't even exist. It makes me so sad that someone has decided that those communities are not allowed to be part of the 4th edition revolution of D&D.
That isn't a fair comparison. People are not leaving because they are "resistant to change". They are leaving because the new structure of the forums does not work.
-It works fine. In your title, you include the setting you are discussing, type the meat of your post, and everyone's fine.
The old forums allowed for discussions of individual campaign settings to occur at whatever pace that respective community desired. I'm not saying they were ideal, but the did do the job.
An uber-forum doesn't do the job because as one person posts something about one campaign setting they knock another post about another campaign setting off of the front page.
-Not for nothing, but it's not as if posts are being knocked off of the front page left and right. If this was happening, it'd be a valid complaint, but it's not. If it was, this section would most likely be a merger for breaking up into more than one section.
If this forum ever does pick up, what will happen is that one campaign seting will be less popular than others and then it will get pushed off of the front page. People surfing in will not see conversation occuring (about their preferred setting) so will assume that nobody here wants to talk about that setting. The only way that one individual community can survive here is to bump all the other communities off of the front page and claim this forum as their own.
-I believe your logic is flawed, in such that somebody can just as easily click to see page 2 as they can to do anything else.
Given the amount of anti-WotC anger I've seen around the Internet (as well as some obviously untrue "WotC eats babies" rabbid nonsense) I can only assume that this merger is an attempt to get rid of any Grognards who don't like the current rules.
-The reasons for the merger of the different sections are well documented, at this point in time. They have been for some time now.
Actually, I think you will find that moderators are from the individual communities. Their experience with individual settings meant that they could tell what people were talking about.
-Moderators, in the current format of the boards, aren't encouraged to talk and post like normal posters. They rarely do anymore, as a result.
I am sorry, but Forgotten Realms has not got it worse that other settings.
-Four (out of six) highly active threads (circa 10-15 active posts in each) mushed into one, I find, is much worse than seven or eight lightly-active threads merged into one. Your mention of topics being bumped to page two, or as is common there, page three, within one day is commonplace, not theory.
You had six Forgotten Realms boards. I had one Spelljammer board. You have been reduced to 1/6th of your size. I have been reduced to no Spelljammer boards. I have nothing - you guys still have something.
-The Spelljammer boards exist as the 'Other Published Settings' section. We are posting in the Spelljammer section right now. It shares with the other "Other Worlds".
It makes me so sad that someone has decided that those communities are not allowed to be part of the 4th edition revolution of D&D.
-The only people who decided that are the people who decided to no longer contribute to these message boards. That said, WotC will be "resurrecting" one defunct setting per year, starting in 2010, after the Eberron and Forgotten Realms settings are released.
-Note, I'm sure I sound harsh. I simply tire of having to type the same stuff over and over and over and over again and again, in different places, here and there.
-Note, I'm sure I sound harsh. I simply tire of having to type the same stuff over and over and over and over again and again, in different places, here and there.
I don't see you as harsh. However we are tiring as well simply because we see what you type as unconvincing and repetition doesn't make it convincing. ;)
-I believe your logic is flawed, in such that somebody can just as easily click to see page 2 as they can to do anything else.
And what about the threads that have been pushed to page 268? If someone wanted to just browse all the threads for a particular world it's impossible now. And god help them if they're looking for an old thread but can't remember something specific enough that the search engine won't spit hundreds of hits at them.
This whole thing is like if the library took all their sections that didn't get as much foot traffic and randomly mixed them all together so the security guard would only have to patrol one section. Maybe a bit easier for them logistically but entirely defeats the purpose of a library.
I don't see you as harsh. However we are tiring as well simply because we see what you type as unconvincing and repetition doesn't make it convincing. ;)
-Well, convincing or not, that's how it is.
And what about the threads that have been pushed to page 268?
-Such threads would be extremely old.
-Just checked. The very first post dates back to: 06-18-03.
-Regardless if the campaign setting this thread dealt with had it's own section or not, it'd still be buried.
-Well, convincing or not, that's how it is.
Hummm....I guess my question is why are you here repeating yourself over and over about those of us who would like to have the old forums back? Don't you belong over in the forgotten realms? Why do you feel it is your personal responsibility to tell everyone here that "that is how it is". Why can't you do like I do and ignore the stuff on here that makes you angry? I am not angry right now...I am seriously curious why a 21 year old living in New York would try to make a bunch of strangers angry on a forum on the internet. I guess the fact that I am 35 and have been playing this game since you were 1 year old gives me a different perspective on how to talk (or type) to other D&D fans. I am not trying to make you upset or angry and please do not think of this as a personal attack...I am genuinely curious....
Hummm....I guess my question is why are you here repeating yourself over and over about those of us who would like to have the old forums back?
-Because ignorance =/= good.
Don't you belong over in the forgotten realms?
-No.
Why do you feel it is your personal responsibility to tell everyone here that "that is how it is".
-Because ignorance =/= good.
Why can't you do like I do and ignore the stuff on here that makes you angry?
-Who said I'm angry?
I am not angry right now...
-Hurray!
I am seriously curious why a 21 year old living in New York would try to make a bunch of strangers angry on a forum on the internet.
-My intent is not to make people angry. That it happens is out of my control.
I guess the fact that I am 35 and have been playing this game since you were 1 year old gives me a different perspective on how to talk (or type) to other D&D fans.
-Ignorance = good, huh?
I rest my case....I don't have time for this anyway...if any of you guys and gals need me I will be over at The Piazza....peaceIf we are going to discuss how Dark Sun can be converted to 4e, should we be using this "Other Published Worlds" forum or should we be discussing this on one of the 4e forums?
If we are going to discuss how Dark Sun can be converted to 4e, should we be using this "Other Published Worlds" forum or should we be discussing this on one of the 4e forums?
-Depends on the focus of the question. If it's more rules, I'd say it belongs in the 4 section. If it's more about the setting itself, like a "Let's make Dark Sun 4e", then it would belong here.
With the potential for Dark Sun to be converted to 4e, I would have expected Dark Sun to be on its own forum. As well as the other worlds that are planning to be converted to 4e in the future.
If we are going to discuss how Dark Sun can be converted to 4e, should we be using this "Other Published Worlds" forum or should we be discussing this on one of the 4e forums?
I would think that it belongs here, and I would think that any Dark Sun thread started anywhere else should be moved here.
Aside from that, if you have any desire to see the "Other Published Worlds" forum meet the arbitrary benchmark for forum-splitting, then you should post discussions about a 4E Dark Sun conversion here rather than a generic 4E forum.
As for your point about coming here expecting to see separate forums for the various worlds, particularly those that should be in line for a 4E version, I agree with you but the powers-that-be don't see it that way. Their only interest is in making the boards look busy, and their solution for these settings was to lump them all in together. If you've perused this thread, you've seen the discussion and you've seen that no amount of discussion will prove to the powers-that-be that their solution was the wrong one. Maybe the only way they'd see that is if they succeeded in completely driving everyone away, and the discussion here completely dried up. Short of that, I expect that they will stay the course.
EDIT: When I said "succeeded in completely driving everyone away," I had something particular in mind. As you can see here, WotC "expected that people would leave and... it was hoped they'd find a home that could serve their needs, because these forums would not cater to them."
-Depends on the focus of the question. If it's more rules, I'd say it belongs in the 4 section. If it's more about the setting itself, like a "Let's make Dark Sun 4e", then it would belong here.
or, if you want to actually have any people to discuss it with, i would suggest you go to athas.org and look around... as i understand it, they now have forums (called the Arena i think).
which is good, because quite frankly people are leaving this forum somewhat like rats deserting a sinking ship (and make no mistake, WotC *is* sinking this ship).
Lord Karsus can tell us all he wants that it's our job to bend over and take it, but the simple fact is that if WotC actually cared about making this section of their forums work, then they would be using a strategy that works for this section of the forums, rather than mindlessly attempting to make them work by doing things that worked in other sections of the forums.
what's left of the 'other settings' part of the forums doesn't even have as much going on as certain of the original separate forums used to have. they are becoming a ghost town, if you will, and WotC apparently doesn't care enough to do anything about it (except to hasten it's destruction by further combining them, i hear... though i can't imagine what might actually have any relation to the other settings forums to combine it with.)
so really, i don't care even if it does work on the forgotten realms forums. it clearly *doesn't* work here. these forums are dead, and they're not going to change anytime soon. about the only thread we actually even remotely need here is one that lists where people can go if they actually want to discuss their favorite settings with other people.
about the only thread we actually even remotely need here is one that lists where people can go if they actually want to discuss their favorite settings with other people.
...which we do have, here - and stickied, too.
or, if you want to actually have any people to discuss it with, i would suggest you go to athas.org and look around... as i understand it, they now have forums (called the Arena i think).
I am on the Arena boards and post regularly to their boards. I have been part of the old mailing lists as well before the WOTC boards and Arena. I will continue to post on both boards.
Lord Karsus can tell us all he wants that it's our job to bend over and take it, but the simple fact is that if WotC actually cared about making this section of their forums work, then they would be using a strategy that works for this section of the forums, rather than mindlessly attempting to make them work by doing things that worked in other sections of the forums.
Well they have made their decision as a business and will deal with as they see fit. At least they have given us a goal if we want this changed...they could have said they will not change it at all....if you want to make a change then I would suggest we keep posting about Dark Sun topics!
I would like to thank Lord Karsus for listening to the rants and ravings that I have read here since he really does not have to. As long as there is a goal then we better step up to the plate and show WOTC why we need a separate forum for Dark Sun if they plan to have Dark Sun 4e.
I understand the business side of what they did to the forums, that was their decision and if I was in their shoes...I may have come to the same conclusion... Either way since they have given a target to hit then we better hit it if we want to change it... I will try and post relavant DS topics as often as I can to meet that target and I just hope others will as well. I mean with the number of people who want Dark Sun we should be able to easily make that mark if they all posted every day or even periodically...my thoughts!!
But here's the thing: if they really wanted busy boards, then why choose a course of action that they fully expect will drive people away? The way I see it, they are more interested in creating the appearance of busy boards than in the actual reality, and they apparently believed that they would be better off without the people that they would drive away.
I can understand their position that the old boards didn't have much activity, but I disagree with the way they went about fixing it. Nevertheless, I am satisfied that they're not going to change their minds based on any arguments we could make. So that leaves two options: make a concerted effort to meet the benchmarks, or pack up and go someplace else. I think you're the first person I've seen post on these boards that seems enthusiastic about the prospect of the former.
But here's the thing: if they really wanted busy boards, then why choose a course of action that they fully expect will drive people away? The way I see it, they are more interested in creating the appearance of busy boards than in the actual reality, and they apparently believed that they would be better off without the people that they would drive away.
I believe that someone had to justify their position and by combining boards you can say that the posts for board X went up by Y%. On the other hand if you keep creating a new board for every aspect of the game and every new version then you end up with a cluttered mess and people don't know where to post and others may not see that post especially if it is a relavent topic.
I can understand their position that the old boards didn't have much activity, but I disagree with the way they went about fixing it. Nevertheless, I am satisfied that they're not going to change their minds based on any arguments we could make. So that leaves two options: make a concerted effort to meet the benchmarks, or pack up and go someplace else. I think you're the first person I've seen post on these boards that seems enthusiastic about the prospect of the former.
I initally was confused about why they made this decision and I still hold some heartache over not keeping the OPW forum separated into its individual worlds especially if they are planning to come out with a 4e version of the individual worlds. I would have thought they would invite the extra interest associated with the potential for 4e worlds....
Your options are right on the money...but if we leave then that could delay the Dark Sun release because they are not seeing as many Dark Sun topics as they have in the past. I don't believe WOTC will be watching all of the other forums out there that happen to be related...that is a lot of forums to watch.
Basically WOTC made their decision and we can either complain about it or prove to them their decision was unjustified by posting topics of interest.
Basically WOTC made their decision and we can either complain about it or prove to them their decision was unjustified by posting topics of interest.
you missed option 3, which is to tell them to take their forum and stick it where the sun don't shine, and go someplace that actually cares. let's pretend for a moment that we do manage to get 50 (or heck, even 45) threads active on a daily basis, and they aren't even just spammed garbage just for the sake of keeping threads active.
how are they going to split the boards that is in any way useful? lord karsus' suggestion was to split it into DM boards and player boards. how does that help? we would still have Mystara DM stuff mixed in with dark sun, spelljammer, ravenloft, and planescape DM stuff, and most of it would not be related to each other. that's not an improvement. that just splitting it into two forums for the sake of splitting it into 2 forums. honestly, the only way these forums will get back to their former state of usefulness based on the current policy is that we get up to several hundred active threads per day. and until we get to that point, there's still going to be people posting ravenloft or whatever in your dark sun section. not to mention whatever it is they add in to these boards, we'll have to generate another 40-50 for those too.
alternately, you can just go to the forums that are not run by WotC, and have your separate forums right now, without having to meet some ridiculous arbitrary goal.
seriously, WotC has as much as said "we don't care about this section" based on their policy. because if they did care, they would change their policy for these forums to something that works for these forums. instead, they know it doesn't work for these forums, and they don't care. to the point where they are apparently planning to add something else to this section.
so is it really worth fighting for something we already have? honestly, dark sun will come out when it comes out. if you're lucky, it will even still look and feel like dark sun when they do bring it out. but based on what the psionics boards *wanted* complete psionic to be, and what they *got*, i don't think WotC necessarily pays as much attention to what happens in the boards as they should (you'd think that free marketing data would interest *someone* over there, but apparently you'd be wrong).
you missed option 3, which is to tell them to take their forum and stick it where the sun don't shine, and go someplace that actually cares. let's pretend for a moment that we do manage to get 50 (or heck, even 45) threads active on a daily basis, and they aren't even just spammed garbage just for the sake of keeping threads active.
By doing just that you have defeated the purpose of trying to keep the Dark Sun forum active... If you take all that energy you have against what WOTC did to this forum and post some information about Dark Sun or questions about Dark Sun then you will have accomplished what this forum needs. We only need 25+ posts to accomplish that and I don't see many people trying anymore....
alternately, you can just go to the forums that are not run by WotC, and have your separate forums right now, without having to meet some ridiculous arbitrary goal.
You can, and I have, but I have not seen you on the Arena boards...at least not as Jaid. Go and post on the Arena boards and talk about Dark Sun there if that is what interests you.
how are they going to split the boards that is in any way useful? lord karsus' suggestion was to split it into DM boards and player boards. how does that help?
I don't know how they will exactly split the boards and I hope they will have a better split than DM vs Player (or Settings Lore). I would love to see a separate Dark Sun board, but any split will apparently only be accomplished if we achieve the posts numbers they have set as a goal....
so is it really worth fighting for something we already have? honestly, dark sun will come out when it comes out. if you're lucky, it will even still look and feel like dark sun when they do bring it out. but based on what the psionics boards *wanted* complete psionic to be, and what they *got*, i don't think WotC necessarily pays as much attention to what happens in the boards as they should (you'd think that free marketing data would interest *someone* over there, but apparently you'd be wrong).
You're right...Dark Sun will come out when it comes out and hopefully they will keep it relatively intact. I hope they are watching the boards more often, but I don't think they do. If they were interested in actually understanding what the DS fans want in the game they would be here interacting with us more...but that is also why we need to keep posting to make them notice us and give us a separate Dark Sun forum.
...let's pretend for a moment that we do manage to get 50 (or heck, even 45) threads active on a daily basis...
-25+.
how are they going to split the boards that is in any way useful? lord karsus' suggestion was to split it into DM boards and player boards. how does that help?
-The most obvious split. It was an offhand suggestion. In the end, it's up to the community to decide.
-25+.
-The most obvious split. It was an offhand suggestion. In the end, it's up to the community to decide.
If there is one thing that is abundantly clear here, it is that the community's voice has no influence in what decisions are made regarding these forums.
If there is one thing that is abundantly clear here, it is that the community's voice has no influence in what decisions are made regarding these forums.
-Entirely untrue. How many of you, asides for recently Brom, participate in the Community Business debates? Honestly? Yes or no, I don't want to hear anything else.
-Entirely untrue. How many of you, asides for recently Brom, participate in the Community Business debates? Honestly? Yes or no, I don't want to hear anything else.
Are you saying the people in charge don't know everyone's unhappy because we're posting here instead of in a different forum?
Havard
Are you saying the people in charge don't know everyone's unhappy because we're posting here instead of in a different forum?
-No, I am saying that the community's voice "no influence in what decisions are made regarding these forums" because the community does not "speak". To use an analogy, it's like not voting, and then complaining about the results of the vote. Before the forums were changed, and still, there are threads in the Community Business section to discuss and share ideas, criticisms, concerns, and so on and so forth. I can recall only Brom participating in such debates, and one other poster, who made a post sarcastically asking to merge the Other Published Worlds section with other "base"* sections that do not garner a lot of traffic.
-That said, the people in charge might not know that people are unhappy, because the displeasure is only here. I don't know their browsing habits.
*That is, those sections that cannot be broken down any further.
-Entirely untrue. How many of you, asides for recently Brom, participate in the Community Business debates? Honestly? Yes or no, I don't want to hear anything else.
Yes.
Next question? Or didn't you want to hear me ask that?
Now Karsus, please get off your higher ground tone of voice. Accept that this new system has angered more people than your willing to admit. Things change, people move on.
If your alright with the way things are going fine - but quit trying to convince us of your point of view, it's not working (unless this is your subtle way of goading a flame-war)
-Entirely untrue. How many of you, asides for recently Brom, participate in the Community Business debates? Honestly? Yes or no, I don't want to hear anything else.
And I only got there after the fact. If there was discussion about the forum merger BEFORE it happened, nobody came in here and told us about it. Nobody invited us to join the discussion. If there was really any interest in the opinions of the people most interested and affected, you'd think they'd have made a point of coming in here and telling us, "Hey, we're thinking of radically altering your forums, why don't you come tell us what you think."
Wrecan's comments in that Community Business thread were the closest I've seen to an explanation of the reasons why the forums were merged - and also the closest I've seen to anyone in authority having the intestinal fortitude to step up and address the issue. Gamer_Zero, for instance, was conspicuous by his absence - and that was in the Community Business forum. Nobody has come into this forum except Lord Karsus, and he's not the decisionmaker, he's just the messenger. (Don't kill the messenger.)
The thing that bothered me about wrecan's comments - if this wasn't apparent from my responses - was how utterly dismissive they were. There was absolutely no willingness to consider that the forum merger wasn't the best way to handle the other worlds forums. The acknowledgment that people would leave as a result of the merger came across as expressing the view that the WotC forums would be better off without the people that left. It became abundantly clear that discussing things in that Community Business thread wasn't going to change anything, so I quit.
Since then, I've been really apathetic about these boards in general and this forum in particular. There are people who left that are unlikely to return. Others may stop by now and then, but will probably never participate like they used to. Some will stay, but how active can you be when there's almost no one to talk to? So when I see a sentiment like Kye_Tyrad posted - hey, let's get active here and meet that benchmark! - my first reaction is cynicism.
-That said, the people in charge might not know that people are unhappy, because the displeasure is only here. I don't know their browsing habits.
It strikes me as the height of irresponsibility to make this change and then not observe the forum to see how it's working out. If that's what's happening here, my opinion of Community Management just sank even lower than it already was.
It strikes me as the height of irresponsibility to make this change and then not observe the forum to see how it's working out. If that's what's happening here, my opinion of Community Management just sank even lower than it already was.
-For all I know, they could be laughing at you. Like I said, I'm not them. I have no clue who most of them are, save G0. They're as much anonymous faces to me as they are you.
Before the forums were changed, and still, there are threads in the Community Business section to discuss and share ideas, criticisms, concerns, and so on and so forth.
This has been bugging me a little bit (not that I'm losing sleep over it or anything). But here's the thing: I never saw any notice in the Greyhawk forum that there was any discussion going on about merging all of the other worlds into a single forum. The Community Business forum organization thread that I did participate in post-dated the reorganization by quite a bit. (Its first post was 5/22/08, while the first post in this thread - which wasn't the first of its kind, either - was 9/16/07.) So how were we supposed to participate?
EDIT: I just went back to the beginning (currently, page 20) of the Community Business forum. There is no thread in that forum that has existed for as long as this thread has. That leads me to believe that the Community Business forum (or at least its current incarnation) does not predate the forum reorganization.
2nd EDIT: Okay, I've discovered the archive. Here is a thread discussing the forum reorganization. Still, I'm a little confused, as it appears to have been started on 1/25/08. And I maintain that, for people who only visited the forum of their favorite setting, there was no way we were going to find that thread in Community Business. It would have been nice to have been invited into the discussion.
Okay, I've discovered the archive. Here is a thread discussing the forum reorganization. Still, I'm a little confused, as it appears to have been started on 1/25/08. And I maintain that, for people who only visited the forum of their favorite setting, there was no way we were going to find that thread in Community Business. It would have been nice to have been invited into the discussion.
I would agree with you. It would have been nice to see a sticky with the title Forum Reorganization pop up in the Mystara forum. Mystara was the only forum I needed to visit on a daily basis and suddenly***poof***its gone
Oh well, I am quite happy over at the Piazza and rarely even visit this forum. :D
The Community Business forum organization thread that I did participate in post-dated the reorganization by quite a bit. (Its first post was 5/22/08, while the first post in this thread - which wasn't the first of its kind, either - was 9/16/07.)
...
Here is a thread discussing the forum reorganization. Still, I'm a little confused, as it appears to have been started on 1/25/08.
Okay, I think I've got this one now. This thread actually pre-dated the forum merger, which IIRC occurred around the same time as the release of the 4E books. It must have originated in the 4E other worlds forum that existed prior to the merger, when each world still had its own board, plus there were 4E boards for FR, Eberron, and Greyhawk - there may have been one or two more, but I know that not every setting had a separate forum in the 4E boards.
Then, after the 4E boards became the only boards, this thread resurfaced. Okay. That explains the dates.
None of this changes my opinion that it is unfair to blame us for not participating in a conversation that we didn't know was occurring. And, by the way, I don't think it would have made any difference. Wrecan's comments in the thread I found in the archive and his responses directly to me make it abundantly clear that the only criterion for a forum's existence is its level of activity.
I guess he never saw "Field of Dreams"....
...and rarely even visit this forum. :D
Based on the level of activity around here lately, I'd say that's been the most common response to this mess.
http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/BlogPost.aspx?blogpostid=96074&pagemode=2&blogid=2158
With Gleemax going down and the Wizards Forum remaining...what is the difference??
http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/BlogPost.aspx?blogpostid=96074&pagemode=2&blogid=2158
-Gleemax was supposed to be a MySpace/Facebook kind of thing, where you could have friended people, and all that other kind of stuff. It failed. Badly. It was never even fully implemented. WotC is erasing the slate now, and removing all of that stuff. The Gleemax stuff is unrelated to the boards, though. These will go on, and hopefully, with less problems.
What business forum would be appropriate to post a comment to change the forum if that is an option?
Well I hope that this may allow for some changes in the forums...
What business forum would be appropriate to post a comment to change the forum if that is an option?
I think what you're looking for is the Community Business forum. It's the very first thing listed under the current boards layout.
Well I hope that this may allow for some changes in the forums...
What business forum would be appropriate to post a comment to change the forum if that is an option?
-Yeah, that's the place.
Some settings do deserve their own section I believe, but some others don't warrent enough attention or attraction to them (No offense to anyone that are fans of SpellJammer and some very old settings) I do think DragonLance deserves it's own since it did after all have a printing in 3e on an official basis.
But they could just as easily make a Spell Jammer etc etc subboard within this forum.
no, the simple fact is that they don't care. they don't care about us, and they don't care about what we want, and they don't care about these settings beyond caring enough to want these boards to somehow look more busy from one perspective in the event that someone should stop by to do some browsing.
the fact that anyone who goes so far as to ask a question is likely to be told that WotC don't care one way or another, and that if they want to discuss the setting in a place where more than one person remains they will have to go somewhere other than the WotC boards apparently doesn't even phase them in the slightest. evidently they don't care about that either.
so yeah, it's not a question of ability, or even really of resources. the only resource that would be required to split these boards that is lacking is the 'WotC actually cares' resource, which is currently at zero.
Lo and behold. I haven't been here in a while and I try to go to the Dark Sun boards and find this mess of a forum. Yes, bring back the seperate forums.
They are several good Dark Sun forums still around though. One of them is at the new Piazza Boards. It was created as a direct response to the handling of the forums here and has been adopted by the Mystara community that used to be active here (plus many more).
We are encouraging fans from any setting, under any rules set, to visit and join in on the discussions.
Couldn't they just do what I do for my forums? You know... make a Subboard? It's not that hard to do you know.
Some settings do deserve their own section I believe, but some others don't warrent enough attention or attraction to them (No offense to anyone that are fans of SpellJammer and some very old settings) I do think DragonLance deserves it's own since it did after all have a printing in 3e on an official basis.
But they could just as easily make a Spell Jammer etc etc subboard within this forum.
-Sections that did not garner more than 25 posts per day that were not in their "lowest common denominator" form were candidates for merging. Even with the old Dragonlance section, and the 4e Dragonlance section that was up for a few months, the two combined still did not garner more than 25 posts per day. Nor did the Mystara section, or the Greyhawk section, or the Planescape section, or the Oriental Adventures section, and so on and so on. The LCD of all of these were that they are all defunct campaign settings, thus this section to house all of them.
-Sections that did not garner more than 25 posts per day that were not in their "lowest common denominator" form were candidates for merging. Even with the old Dragonlance section, and the 4e Dragonlance section that was up for a few months, the two combined still did not garner more than 25 posts per day. Nor did the Mystara section, or the Greyhawk section, or the Planescape section, or the Oriental Adventures section, and so on and so on. The LCD of all of these were that they are all defunct campaign settings, thus this section to house all of them.
In a way, I hate to keep harping on this, because I don't believe it will do any good - but apparently I don't hate it enough to stop entirely.
I think by now, we've all read about the thread-count criterion. We get that, we really do. But what we're saying (if I may be so bold as to speak for everyone else) is that the thread-count criterion is only one facet of the situation and it's not the only one that WotC should have considered.
Leaving the individual world forums separate and declaring them unmergeable would have shown a commitment to building a community that is responsive to its members' wishes. It would have encouraged fans to stay and maybe even come back.
Instead, WotC has shown that it has no interest in hosting a community of fans of these old settings. Only when these settings have been mined for a 4E update will WotC be interested in courting our participation. (I doubt that newly-announced 4E settings will have to wait for the appropriate thread-count; I suspect they'll get their own sections as soon as they're announced.) What this shows is that WotC's only real goal here is selling 4E. (That being the case, I'm frankly a little surprised that there's still a previous editions forum - except that such a forum serves as a dumping ground to keep threads about previous editions out of the otherwise 4E-oriented forums.)
These forums are not a fan community - they're a marketing tool. We need to understand that and adjust our expectations accordingly. If we want a fan community, we need to go elsewhere. And, for the most part, we have.
-Sections that did not garner more than 25 posts per day that were not in their "lowest common denominator" form were candidates for merging. Even with the old Dragonlance section, and the 4e Dragonlance section that was up for a few months, the two combined still did not garner more than 25 posts per day. Nor did the Mystara section, or the Greyhawk section, or the Planescape section, or the Oriental Adventures section, and so on and so on. The LCD of all of these were that they are all defunct campaign settings, thus this section to house all of them.
right. like i said, wizards just doesn't care. if they did care, they would've left things the way they were. instead, they care about being able to pretend like their other settings section of the boards has some traffic. instead, what they've accomplished is to kill the traffic. i'm sure there wasn't 25 posts a day in each of the separate subforums, but i can say with confidence that some of the individual subforums had more posts than this combined forum has.
instead, given a choice between the presumed appearance of more people frequenting this part of the boards and more people actually frequenting this part of the boards, they've chosen to have the presumed appearance of more people (though, like i said, their plan completely and utterly backfired on them, because there is no way this forum keeps up with the volume of just the dark sun forum from before, let alone all of the forums from before combined).
if it's dark sun you're interested in, i understand the main forum in use now is called the arena and can be found at athas.org/.
I think by now, we've all read about the thread-count criterion. We get that, we really do. But what we're saying (if I may be so bold as to speak for everyone else) is that the thread-count criterion is only one facet of the situation and it's not the only one that WotC should have considered.
-It's the only criterion that can be measured. Havard created a thread on the Community Business section to discuss other ways that threads can be "counted". Some of the idea thrown around included "worth", "community building", "relevance", things like that. The problem is that things like that are subjective. I might think that a thread about X is constructive, while he might think that a thread about X is constructive.
right. like i said, wizards just doesn't care.
-It's not necessarily that they don't care. The criterion chosen was active threads. Those without enough activity were merged, or outright deleted. Personally speaking, if I ran the boards, or similar boards, I might make a similar decision. Another message board that I frequent from time to time, as mostly an observer, has threads on it's main page dating back months, and numerous different sections. I'd consolidate those, and I'd consolidate areas here, the same.
-It's not necessarily that they don't care. The criterion chosen was active threads. Those without enough activity were merged, or outright deleted. Personally speaking, if I ran the boards, or similar boards, I might make a similar decision. Another message board that I frequent from time to time, as mostly an observer, has threads on it's main page dating back months, and numerous different sections. I'd consolidate those, and I'd consolidate areas here, the same.
Let's face it, the criterion was stupid and whatever the reason was for setting that particular criterion, it most likely failed.
1) Have more discussions been generated? If looking at the Other Worlds Section?
2) Have the Boards become smoother to run?
3) Have the posts in this section changed from being constructive to negative, or is it more likely that they have changed in the other way?
4) Is most of the old crowd still here, or have many left for alternative forums?
I think Jaid is correct. The decisions were made out of not caring for this particular section of WotCs market, or out of complete ignorance of the effects of the decisions made. If the decision makers at WotC's understanding is reflected in LK's comments on how he'd run his board, I'd say things point to the latter. They just don't get it.
The next logical question is, why should they care? We are just talking about Out of Print products and not really buying anything, right? We're directing attention away from current product lines like 4e towards things that don't provide WotC with any money?
Wrong.
1. Keeping the Old World discussions here would have encouraged more talk about how to use the Old Worlds with 4e and made more of the old crowd buy 4e books. Because of Mystara discussions here, I ended up buying much more 3e material than I needed to, just to be part of discussions. I even bought FR stuff to see how to properly build a 3e setting. And I have no interest in FR whatsoever. I suspect I'm not the only one who would buy new rules for the sake of converting.
2. Having old timers around can also be of great use to newcomers looking for advice on general roleplaying.
3. Also Old Timers have more money than the younger crowd. Why miss out on the part of the market that can actually pay?
4. The Old World forums were _not_ dominated by negative attitudes towards the new editions. This was certainly not true for the Mystara forum, and I didnt see it in the other forums I visited. If WotC wanted to get rid of the grumpy old men, they aimed at the wrong people.
Thanks for your attention
Havard
Let's face it, the criterion was stupid...
-I don't think so, no. Twenty-five is an arbitrary number, yes, but that areas need to meet specific benchmarks, or be consolidated with other areas that are related makes sense to me.
-And, again, no one is forcing anyone to leave. That people are leaving, they are doing so on their own volition. WotC has no control over that.
-I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Instead of attempting to make due with what the metaphorical you've got, the metaphorical 'you' are doing nothing with it. And then, the metaphorical you are complaining about it, which is the part that *I* don't get. I can understand all of the other arguments. But, to complain that there's no activity because the metaphorical you are encouraging others to go elsewhere? That part...
-I don't think so, no. Twenty-five is an arbitrary number, yes, but that areas need to meet specific benchmarks, or be consolidated with other areas that are related makes sense to me.
First of all, the number is unreasonably high for any forum dealing with any Out of Print setting or indeed many in print games from smaller publishers. Personally I rarely post on forums that have such a level of activity (like rpg.net for instance) because they are disorienting.
Secondly, I made a long list of arguments for why the criterion is stupid in my previous post.
-And, again, no one is forcing anyone to leave. That people are leaving, they are doing so on their own volition. WotC has no control over that.
People are leaving because their forums are gone. I would have preferred discussions to stay here, but not at the expense of the communities I took part in. I am happy that we are able to keep the community alive elsewhere, but it would have been nicer if we could have had those discussions here.
Saying that WotC has no control over what happened is simply not true. WotC drove the majority of our communities away. That was within their control. They could bring us back, though it wouldnt be easy. Reevaluating the decisions made would be a good start.
-I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Instead of attempting to make due with what the metaphorical you've got, the metaphorical 'you' are doing nothing with it. And then, the metaphorical you are complaining about it, which is the part that *I* don't get. I can understand all of the other arguments. But, to complain that there's no activity because the metaphorical you are encouraging others to go elsewhere? That part...
You may note that I have started several threads over the last months in this forum that do not deal with complaints. They are not getting nearly as many responses as they used to. Which really should prove my point about the effect of killing off old world forums. And I havent even mentioned the Previous Editions Forum.
Sorry, I cannot speak for the "metaphorical us", but saying we are doing nothing is something I find highly offensive. You cannot expect us to build castles when we are given dirt.
Havard
First of all, the number is unreasonably high for any forum dealing with any Out of Print setting or indeed many in print games from smaller publishers.
-In your opinion. Those in charge of the WotC boards think differently. Personally, speaking, I don't find 25 too high. I find it too low, and am actually embarrassed when the Realmslore section has fewer than 30 posts per day (and when the Forgotten Realms section, when there was still just one big lump, had less than 40).
Secondly, I made a long list of arguments for why the criterion is stupid in my previous post.
-Most of the reasons you provided aren't related to determining the criterion, but rather, the results of implementing it. Some of which, I agree with. But, most of the results are something that no one could have foreseen, I don't believe. Remember, the merging of the various different sections was supposed to bolster activity, not choke it off. The reasoning was that, instead of three sections with 10 posts each, there'd be one section, with 30 posts (arbitrary numbers).
People are leaving because their forums are gone.
-No, they're not. They're right here. We're in them, talking about the status of them.
Saying that WotC has no control over what happened is simply not true. WotC drove the majority of our communities away. That was within their control. They could bring us back, though it wouldnt be easy. Reevaluating the decisions made would be a good start.
-People telling others not to go to the WotC boards, in lieu of going to other places causes activity to slow. People "relocating" to other boards causes activity to slow. These things aren't bad in and of themselves. The setting is still being discussed, and people are still knocking elbows, and so on and so on. But these are the things that cause activity to slow and cease here.
You may note that I have started several threads over the last months in this forum that do not deal with complaints. They are not getting nearly as many responses as they used to. Which really should prove my point about the effect of killing off old world forums. And I havent even mentioned the Previous Editions Forum.
-Yes, and this primarily is due to the above.
Sorry, I cannot speak for the "metaphorical us", but saying we are doing nothing is something I find highly offensive. You cannot expect us to build castles when we are given dirt.
-What do you think sandcastles are? You'll never again have a cardboard box castle, I can say that much. But, you can have a sandcastle. I think the analogy is apt.
-My Forgotten Realms boards went from 6 to 1. Most of us were angry. So, we worked with the system, and now have 2. Going by the criteria stated for merging/splitting sections, we could, in theory, have 3.
-Doing the same, I can see something like this with the Other Published Settings area:
'Beyond the Horizon': Planescape and Spelljammer
'The Known World': Mystara and other applicable settings (I don't know very much about Mystara, but am aware of things like the Hollow World, and other 'subsettings')
'D&D Classics': Greyhawk and Dragonlance
-Similar groupings like that.
-I'm signing off now, so talk to you later tonight.
-In your opinion. Those in charge of the WotC boards think differently. Personally, speaking, I don't find 25 too high. I find it too low, and am actually embarrassed when the Realmslore section has fewer than 30 posts per day (and when the Forgotten Realms section, when there was still just one big lump, had less than 40).
My opinion yes. The other problem is using Thread Count rather than post count. I suspect some forums, such as perhaps rules forums generate more threads while the number of posts per thread may be lower.
I am especially frustrated about this because at the time of the merger, the Mystara forum had a higher posting rate than ever before, and was the most active Other Worlds forum except for Dark Sun. However, we loved long haul threads where we'd discuss multiple topics all in a big mix rather than starting a new thread for just about anything that would come up. Had we known people would be monitoring thread counts, things would have been very different I expect.
-Most of the reasons you provided aren't related to determining the criterion, but rather, the results of implementing it. Some of which, I agree with. But, most of the results are something that no one could have foreseen, I don't believe. Remember, the merging of the various different sections was supposed to bolster activity, not choke it off. The reasoning was that, instead of three sections with 10 posts each, there'd be one section, with 30 posts (arbitrary numbers).
My point being that criterions should be set based on what you are trying to achieve. While I am sure some people were surprised by the results, I could have told you this before it happened. I think the problem that they didnt take into account that some forums are of a different nature than others;
If you merge two Forgotten Realms forums, people might not like it, but it would be the same people posting in both forums anyway. Or at least you'd have some things in common. Similarly, if you merge the 3e forum for Skills with the 3e forum for Feats, both forums will probably have pretty much the same people posting in them.
Now if you merge Mystara and Ravenloft, you will have two groups of people, the majority of whom will have no interest in 50% of the topics (assuming both worlds have the same level of activity).
-No, they're not. They're right here. We're in them, talking about the status of them.
The threads have been moved here, but the forums are gone. Its as if you took all the furniture from my house, chucked it in a hangar with lots of other people's furniture and told me my house was in that hangar.
-People telling others not to go to the WotC boards, in lieu of going to other places causes activity to slow. People "relocating" to other boards causes activity to slow. These things aren't bad in and of themselves. The setting is still being discussed, and people are still knocking elbows, and so on and so on. But these are the things that cause activity to slow and cease here.
I don't think anyone is telling anuone not to go on the WotC boards. Setting up alternative forums is not a matter of showing WotC the finger, it is about life and death for the individual communities. Without a place where we can feel welcome, the communities would die.
-Yes, and this primarily is due to the above.
No. It is about WotC taking away our home. Sure they provided a new one for us, but it's not up to standards.
-What do you think sandcastles are? You'll never again have a cardboard box castle, I can say that much. But, you can have a sandcastle. I think the analogy is apt.
Sandcastles are nice, but I wouldnt want to live in one.
-My Forgotten Realms boards went from 6 to 1. Most of us were angry. So, we worked with the system, and now have 2. Going by the criteria stated for merging/splitting sections, we could, in theory, have 3.
1 is something you can work from. We went from 1 to 0.
-Doing the same, I can see something like this with the Other Published Settings area:
'Beyond the Horizon': Planescape and Spelljammer
'The Known World': Mystara and other applicable settings (I don't know very much about Mystara, but am aware of things like the Hollow World, and other 'subsettings')
'D&D Classics': Greyhawk and Dragonlance
-Similar groupings like that.
I would be happy with a situation like that personally, because my main interest is Mystara and its subsettings (The Known World, Blackmoor, Hollow World, Red Steel, Thunder Rift etc). Mystara would probably be a better heading than the Known World, but that's just nitpicking.
I don't know if the other forums would be as happy though. Oh, and while I realize you were only tossing out examples, you left out Dark Sun, which really was the most active board among the Other Worlds. Those guys were amazing.
-I'm signing off now, so talk to you later tonight.
I expect so
Havard
My opinion yes. The other problem is using Thread Count rather than post count. I suspect some forums, such as perhaps rules forums generate more threads while the number of posts per thread may be lower.
-Post count would be a nice thing, too. But, you run into the same problem as thread count: You need to set an arbitrary number. Are twenty-five posts in a day enough to consider something active and "healthy"? Thirty? Fifty? Ten?
-And, as wrecan alluded to in your post at Community Business, many other criterion that could measure activity are subjective, or don't paint an accurate picture. For example, would you consider a section that had only 1 active thread, with everything else being months old, a hotbed of activity? Personally speaking, if this were the case in some section, I'd have it merged with something that was somehow related, regardless of the fact that that one thread was very active.
I am especially frustrated about this because at the time of the merger, the Mystara forum had a higher posting rate than ever before, and was the most active Other Worlds forum except for Dark Sun. However, we loved long haul threads where we'd discuss multiple topics all in a big mix rather than starting a new thread for just about anything that would come up. Had we known people would be monitoring thread counts, things would have been very different I expect.
-That, indeed, might have changed things. Might not have, though. All we know is, you can't go into the past and change things.
My point being that criterions should be set based on what you are trying to achieve. While I am sure some people were surprised by the results, I could have told you this before it happened. I think the problem that they didnt take into account that some forums are of a different nature than others;
-Two things: Firstly, the individuals in charge of the boards are/were looking to raise activity levels. Speaking in terms of the Forgotten Realms boards, which is the only anecdotal evidence I can use, six threads with about 5-10 active threads per day merged into 1 thread with about 40-75 active threads per day. When measuring raised activity levels, they certainly achieved their goal. Secondly, ideally, it'd be nice, but you can't make exceptions for X, Y, and Z. If a policy is instituted, it needs to be applied uniformly. If, say, the individual Other Published Settings areas were not "held accountable" to the stated guidelines for section merging/splitting, people in the Eberron area might get upset and start complaining, citing unfair treatment, people in the Forgotten Realms area might get upset and start complaining, citing unfair treatment, people in the Character Development area might get upset and start complaining, and so on.
If you merge two Forgotten Realms forums, people might not like it, but it would be the same people posting in both forums anyway. Or at least you'd have some things in common. Similarly, if you merge the 3e forum for Skills with the 3e forum for Feats, both forums will probably have pretty much the same people posting in them.
Now if you merge Mystara and Ravenloft, you will have two groups of people, the majority of whom will have no interest in 50% of the topics (assuming both worlds have the same level of activity).
-This is the main problem that stems from this reorganization. And, really, there isn't any way around it. But, as long as thread creators 'tag' their threads ([Greyhawk], [Mystara], etc.) confusion can be lessened. Sure, there are going to be threads that you aren't interested in, but that really can't be helped. Ignore it.
-In a few weeks, the 4e version of the Forgotten Realms is going to be released. I don't know if you follow these things or not, but the 4e incarnation (as I like to call it, the 4-Gotten Realms) differs a great deal from the current, and previous edition incarnations of the Forgotten Realms. The timeline is being bumped forward by about 100 years, and huge swaths of the planet are getting make-overs, some subtle, some massive. To me, someone who has no interest in the "new" Forgotten Realms, all of the threads created to address a specific question, or point, or aspect about them will be of no use to me. In effect, these threads will be the Greyhawk threads to the Mystara fans, or the Dragonlance threads to the Dark Sun fans. But, that's all I (and everyone else) can do. Ignore them.
-And, hey, it's not as if threads that were of no interest to you never came up before, even when every setting had it's own identity as a section! :P
The threads have been moved here, but the forums are gone. Its as if you took all the furniture from my house, chucked it in a hangar with lots of other people's furniture and told me my house was in that hangar.
-And, if you are dependent on the people who moved your furniture, and are providing you with a home, what can you do? You can only listen to them. You can, however, live with those people, and "carve out" a new house, for a lack of better words. And, who knows? You might like it better, maybe, with the new perspectives and ideas, and so on?
I don't think anyone is telling anuone not to go on the WotC boards. Setting up alternative forums is not a matter of showing WotC the finger, it is about life and death for the individual communities. Without a place where we can feel welcome, the communities would die.
-In addition, or in lieu of giving people who have questions answers here, people often state, "Come to X." Or, as you stated, people post new discussions elsewhere, in lieu of here. Looking at it entirely from the point of view of attempting to bolster the community here, that doesn't help. But, remember, I did say that doing that in and of itself isn't a bad thing. ;)
No. It is about WotC taking away our home. Sure they provided a new one for us, but it's not up to standards.
-Your house might have been ripped down by Hurricane Mike. But, you still have that wood. You still have the nails. You can build it back up. Will it be the same house you had? No. Will it be an equally good house? Possibly. Will it build itself? No.
Sandcastles are nice, but I wouldnt want to live in one.
-Then don't bring up metaphors! :P
-The point is, what exists is what exists. Longing for "what once was" is nice, sure, but nothing is going to come of it. Who doesn't guilt themselves about decisions made in life? I know I do. But, in my reveries, I often realize that no amount of wishful thinking is going to change things that happened, or what didn't happen. You have dirt, make a sandcastle. You have a lemon, make lemonade. You have nuclear waste, create Godzilla.
1 is something you can work from. We went from 1 to 0.
-As I said before, we're currently in the 1 forum, talking about it. You might not want to recognize it, but it is what it is, regardless.
I would be happy with a situation like that personally, because my main interest is Mystara and its subsettings (The Known World, Blackmoor, Hollow World, Red Steel, Thunder Rift etc). Mystara would probably be a better heading than the Known World, but that's just nitpicking.
I don't know if the other forums would be as happy though. Oh, and while I realize you were only tossing out examples, you left out Dark Sun, which really was the most active board among the Other Worlds. Those guys were amazing.
-Like I said, I was randomly making some ideas out of the blue. I only follow Spalljammer and Planescape and the extra-Faerûnian continents of Abeir-Toril with any passion, and know of Dark Sun and Dragonlance through passing. I'm sure better couplings and such can be made.
But, to complain that there's no activity because the metaphorical you are encouraging others to go elsewhere? That part...
I'm not complaining about the lack of activity here. If anyone else was, I missed it.
The complaint is that we don't like WotC's decision to merge the other worlds forums into a single forum. I don't think I've seen anyone post a comment to the effect that they like having a single forum instead of separate ones. Every comment I've seen has said that separate forums would be preferable. And yes, there have been posts directing people to other sites where that preferable condition exists.
But let's not forget that WotC knew that people would leave as a result of this merger and they were fine with that. And nobody from WotC has bothered to post anything in here in an effort to smooth things over, either. So what can we conclude except that they don't care? And if they don't care, why should we have any hope that things will change?
Also as the proclaimed "Master of the Obvious", it should be more than obvious nobody is listening to his rhetoric and that most have moved on or just remain to argue with him out of some perverse sense of joy:D . A very few seem to be alright with 4th edition nerfing of their game world.
Well as Lord Karsus is the ONLY person fighting on the side of WotC, and doing a poor job at convincing people - I feel it is he who should be saving his fingers.
Also as the proclaimed "Master of the Obvious", it should be more than obvious nobody is listening to his rhetoric and that most have moved on or just remain to argue with him out of some perverse sense of joy:D . A very few seem to be alright with 4th edition nerfing of their game world.
Listen, I don't agree with Lord Karsus, but I appreciate his willingness to stop by and try to explain. His point of view isn't entirely without merit, and it seems to be working for his Forgotten Realms forums. I just, personally, think that WotC should have declared each game world as the lowest, unmergeable element of the boards. That would treat all game worlds equally, and it would not have driven away a large percentage of the people who were still frequenting the other worlds forums before the merger. That's a point on which LK and I differ, but that's not cause for attacking him personally.
If you want to attack anyone, aim your ire at Gamer_Zer0 and the rest of the powers that be. They're the ones who deserve it. But even then, we're better off attacking their poor decisions or their unwillingness to post even a single thing here, and not them personally.
EDIT: I took the "Master of the Obvious" thing as a swipe at LK. If that's not how it was intended, then disregard the first paragraph of my post.
The complaint is that we don't like WotC's decision to merge the other worlds forums into a single forum.
-Right. Nothing is going to change that, except for increased participation, in which groupings like I was discussing with havard can spring up. By leaving, that is counterproductive to the goal of expanding this section. Now, personally speaking, if someone wants to go somewhere else and post things, that's their own business. There's no problem with that. But, when people do this, and complain about things here, I find it hypocritical.
But let's not forget that WotC knew that people would leave as a result of this merger and they were fine with that.
-This, I don't think is true. At least, not to the degree that I think you are implying. Like I said to havard, no one has a crystal ball. I don't think that the people in charge of the message board intended to cause people to leave, nor do I think they could have foreseen so many people becoming agitated, and simply abandoning the section (which was already light on activity to begin with) all together.
And nobody from WotC has bothered to post anything in here in an effort to smooth things over, either.
-That is very true. While I think someone should have, as it would have been a nice gesture, remember: They aren't mandated to be nice to anyone.
And if they don't care, why should we have any hope that things will change?
-Because when the specificied criteria are met, things change. The Forgotten Realms met the specified criteria, I let those in charge know, and presto, within a little time and a little campaigning, the second Forgotten Realms section was created.
-If you don't speak up for yourself, no one else is going to care about your problems.
the spelljammer community has not been hurt by this. we've grown stronger, more active, with more members. it's wizards that's losing out here. their fans are deserting this forum like the sinking ship it is. the simple fact is that their plan didn't work for this part of the boards. if it didn't work for this part of the boards, then it's time to re-examine the plan and make some changes. instead, WotC has just written it off as a loss and carried on. don't try to tell me that WotC cares, when all of their actions show clearly that they don't. they don't even care enough to send someone over to these boards to lie to our faces about caring, to the point that the only person who cares to explain anything about the decision is not an employee of WotC, and is choosing to do so on their spare time. they actually don't even care enough to tell us when a decision is being made about our forums (because let's face it, how many people in the wizards forums actually spend much time in the community business section?). so why should i care about building up a community for them?
if WotC wants a strong community here, then they need to offer us a set of tools for building a community. otherwise, we're just going to pack up and go someplace else where the tools are already present.
for your proposed 3-way split (which still leaves a few settings homeless, including the aforementioned dark sun, birthright, ravenloft, and probably something else that i missed) would require that we build the community to the point where we have 75 threads a day. if we wanted to also actually have a fourth subforum (for those settings you missed) we would need 100 per day. and you have what, around 50-60 for forgotten realms, the flagship setting that is the first one to be converted to 4th edition? realistically, if we wait until we fill their criterion, we're not going to get the forums split even once anytime in the forseeable future. the simple fact is that we have no reason to want to build a community here. wizards has not offered us even the amount of support that we can access on our own. if wizards wants a community here to support *their* forums when they get around to converting these settings to 4th edition, then it's their responsibility to offer us the tools to make this the main place to set up shop.
because after all, if i just want to have discussions about spelljammer, i can take them anyplace where other people want to have those discussions. location is not important to me. the only people who should care that there is a strong community specifically here on these boards would be wizards of the coast. and they clearly don't.
as Brom said, the baseline should have been that each setting can't be combined with another setting. that was the case for forgotten realms, and that was the case for eberron. if it had been the case for us, we wouldn't have been nearly as upset. instead, WotC has driven the communities away from their forums, to places where the communities can manage their own business. and everytime someone comes here to discuss an 'other' setting, i'm just going to keep on referring them to a place where they can actually have a discussion, because that's where the community is, and that's where the community is being built. and i don't see why i should stop complaining. it's a nuisance for me to have to remember 2 dozen websites to refer people to. i would *like* to be able to have the community built here, where the obvious place for people to go to discuss the settings would be if wizards cared enough to put in the effort to keep their communities here (said effort would have involved not changing anything... that is to say, no effort at all).
-Right. Nothing is going to change that, except for increased participation, in which groupings like I was discussing with havard can spring up. By leaving, that is counterproductive to the goal of expanding this section. Now, personally speaking, if someone wants to go somewhere else and post things, that's their own business. There's no problem with that. But, when people do this, and complain about things here, I find it hypocritical.
it's not hypocritical. hypocritical would be complaining there's not enough posts here when we're encouraging people to go elsewhere. we just want a place where we can build a community that is convenient, and if that someplace happens to be elsewhere, then we'll go elsewhere.
-That is very true. While I think someone should have, as it would have been a nice gesture, remember: They aren't mandated to be nice to anyone.
actually, they *are* mandated to be nice to people. specifically, they are mandated to be nice to their customers (and potential customers). that's what marketing, customer service, and public relations departments are all about. if they had a booth rep at gen con who swore at all the people who walked by and threw rotting vegetables at everyone who wanted to play, how long do you think it would be before he was replaced by someone who smiles and says hello? why? because they most definitely *are* mandated to be nice to us.
-Because when the specificied criteria are met, things change. The Forgotten Realms met the specified criteria, I let those in charge know, and presto, within a little time and a little campaigning, the second Forgotten Realms section was created.
there's a big difference between change, and meaningful change. in order for us to get what we want (each setting gets it's own forums) we need 25 threads per day per forum, or about 200 active threads per day evenly spread across the 'other' settings. minimum. otherwise, we're just going to be put into a situation where it sucks slightly less, rather than a situation where we want to be which is freely available elsewhere.
Just curious.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
the simple fact is, why should i care about wizards boards at all? if it is easier to build a community elsewhere (and for the record, the piazza forums are much more active than the WotC ones were, and we most certainly are building up a community there) then why should i waste any time or effort building a community here? if wizards threw all my furniture into a warehouse somewhere and there's someone else who's saying "hey, we've got a separate house for you over here" then why should i care one way or another about the warehouse?
-Why stop by and complain about it, then? Especially if, as you said, you actively "[refer others] to a place where they can actually have a discussion, because that's where the community is, and that's where the community is being built". This is why I said it seems hypocritical. On one hand, people are angry that the various areas have been condensed, and voicing their displeasure, but at the same time, instead of working with the system, which is the one way to take matters "into your own hands" and mold THIS place more to your liking, people are directing others to other sites.
-Like I said, there's nothing wrong with that. But, why complain about this, then?
for your proposed 3-way split (which still leaves a few settings homeless, including the aforementioned dark sun, birthright, ravenloft, and probably something else that i missed)
-That wasn't supposed to be anything concrete. It was a suggestion based on combining things that are similar (Planescape and Spelljammer, Dragonlance and Greyhawk, the different Mystara settings, etc.).
that was the case for forgotten realms, and that was the case for eberron.
-Each, on their own, had fairly high thread post rates, which is something none of the former sections had.
there's a big difference between change, and meaningful change. in order for us to get what we want (each setting gets it's own forums) we need 25 threads per day per forum, or about 200 active threads per day evenly spread across the 'other' settings. minimum. otherwise, we're just going to be put into a situation where it sucks slightly less, rather than a situation where we want to be which is freely available elsewhere.
-As I said to havard, the house that you had that Hurricane Mike blew over is never going to be rebuilt exactly as it was. The best you can do, with the materials available, is to build something similar to it, but with inherent differences. And, it might even be better than the original, who knows?
As I said to havard, the house that you had that Hurricane Mike blew over is never going to be rebuilt exactly as it was. The best you can do, with the materials available, is to build something similar to it, but with inherent differences. And, it might even be better than the original, who knows?
With the materials available, we have indeed built something similar to it, but with inherent differences, exactly as you suggest. And it is better than the original, exactly as you appear to have hoped. of course, there are inherent differences in what has been rebuilt. I suppose one of the key differences is in where exactly the house has been rebuilt. It just didn't make sense to rebuild the house in a state that is noted for the frequency and severity of its tornadoes.
-Right. Nothing is going to change that, except for increased participation, in which groupings like I was discussing with havard can spring up. By leaving, that is counterproductive to the goal of expanding this section. Now, personally speaking, if someone wants to go somewhere else and post things, that's their own business. There's no problem with that. But, when people do this, and complain about things here, I find it hypocritical.
The thing is, we'd prefer to participate in a forum that is organized like this one used to be - each world with its own forum. Given the options of (1)staying here and trying to convince WotC to re-split the forum, or (2) going to someplace that is either devoted to our setting of choice or is organized the way we'd prefer this one be organized, it shouldn't be particularly surprising that a good number of people have chosen option #2.
I don't see anything hypocritical about posting here to let WotC know what it is that we're unhappy about.
-This, I don't think is true. At least, not to the degree that I think you are implying. Like I said to havard, no one has a crystal ball. I don't think that the people in charge of the message board intended to cause people to leave, nor do I think they could have foreseen so many people becoming agitated, and simply abandoning the section (which was already light on activity to begin with) all together.
In response, let me just refer to wrecan's comments in the Community Business forum, made in response to my comment that WotC didn't anticipate the number of people who'd be upset about the merger and just leave:
I for one totally expected it and I raised it as a possibility when we were discussing on these boards what to do about the Other Worlds. Frankly, the level of rancor is decidedly less that I figured was going to happen.
If you're looking for boards where four posts a day on a board is sufficient, then yes, the Wizards boards are not for you. Wizards.community is not looking to have a monopoly on dead and dormant game lines. So yes, it was expected that people would leave and... it was hoped they'd find a home that could serve their needs, because these forums would not cater to them.
Wrecan certainly seemed to be speaking for more than just himself. I know he was leading the discussion about the forum reorganization.
-That is very true. While I think someone should have, as it would have been a nice gesture, remember: They aren't mandated to be nice to anyone.
No, but you'd think they'd be more interested in smoothing things over with a large number of consumers. (Of course, if they're just looking at the post count here, they probably don't think there are that many angry consumers to deal with. That is, if they've looked here at all....)
-Because when the specificied criteria are met, things change. The Forgotten Realms met the specified criteria, I let those in charge know, and presto, within a little time and a little campaigning, the second Forgotten Realms section was created.
-If you don't speak up for yourself, no one else is going to care about your problems.
The problem is, I doubt that enough people will come back here to make a difference unless the forums are changed. And even then, I'm not sure people would come back anymore. I think WotC messed up, and I'm speaking up by posting here to let them know it. (It's probably not doing any good, though, because I doubt that WotC is listening or that they care....)
Whoa! Did one of the least antagonistic posts in this thread (my only post) just get deleted?
Just curious.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Yeah, I don't see it anymore. Weird....
-Like I said, there's nothing wrong with that. But, why complain about this, then?
Because we'd still like to have the forums here changed to our liking. If we had given up, we wouldn't bother coming here at all.
The thing is, we'd prefer to participate in a forum that is organized like this one used to be - each world with its own forum. Given the options of (1)staying here and trying to convince WotC to re-split the forum, or (2) going to someplace that is either devoted to our setting of choice or is organized the way we'd prefer this one be organized, it shouldn't be particularly surprising that a good number of people have chosen option #2.
I don't see anything hypocritical about posting here to let WotC know what it is that we're unhappy about.
-It becomes hypocritical when, as Jaid, said, people "[refer others] to a place where they can actually have a discussion, because that's where the community is, and that's where the community is being built", rather than building the community here, and complain about the lack of community at the same time. It's akin to telling everyone to leave me alone, and then being angry that no one wants to hang out with me. Note, I'm not accusing anyone specifically of anything, but it is the general feeling that the community is giving off since the forum mergers.
In response, let me just refer to wrecan's comments in the Community Business forum, made in response to my comment that WotC didn't anticipate the number of people who'd be upset about the merger and just leave:
Wrecan certainly seemed to be speaking for more than just himself. I know he was leading the discussion about the forum reorganization.
-I cannot speak for wrecan. That said, I disagree with him, in that the message boards aren't seeking to "attract" such users. If this were the case, there wouldn't be anywhere to discuss the various defunct settings that are still played.
No, but you'd think they'd be more interested in smoothing things over with a large number of consumers. (Of course, if they're just looking at the post count here, they probably don't think there are that many angry consumers to deal with. That is, if they've looked here at all....)
-Mike has confirmed that he is indeed familiar with this thread.
The problem is, I doubt that enough people will come back here to make a difference unless the forums are changed.
-It's a paradox: The boards won't change more to people's likings unless they "come back" and participate, and people won't participate because the boards aren't to their liking.
And even then, I'm not sure people would come back anymore. I think WotC messed up, and I'm speaking up by posting here to let them know it. (It's probably not doing any good, though, because I doubt that WotC is listening or that they care....)
-See above.
-It becomes hypocritical when, as Jaid, said, people "[refer others] to a place where they can actually have a discussion, because that's where the community is, and that's where the community is being built", rather than building the community here, and complain about the lack of community at the same time.
I disagree that anyone is ultimately complaining about the lack of community here. The complaints are about the snuffing out of certain communities that were vibrant or growing all in the name of an arbitrary number that appeals to someone's sense of "busy-ness".
Besides, WotC has destroyed a sense of trust in this to many by the merging. If ANYONE involved with the forums who has responsibility enough that they could claim with certainty that if some retired setting's fans achieved this wondrous benchmark of consistent 25 posts per day, that by achieving the benchmark the setting would be rewarded with its own distinct forum . . . we fans all would have something to work for.
But they haven't said this. And I don't think they ever will. I don't think they want us fans of retired settings to truly achieve our own forums. I think it is something more than just 25 posts per day, because when some retired setting's fans achieve this 25 posts per day benchmark, I believe, they will move the goal posts to something that is completely unachievable.
Until someone with responsibility says 25 posts will actually matter, I believe it is just a canard.
I disagree that anyone is ultimately complaining about the lack of community here. The complaints are about the snuffing out of certain communities that were vibrant or growing all in the name of an arbitrary number that appeals to someone's sense of "busy-ness".
-Nothing has been snuffed out. The space to continue posting exists right here, where we are all posting. Using havard's analogy, the house that was there was knocked over, but you still have a house. It's not the same exact house, but it's a house.
Besides, WotC has destroyed a sense of trust in this to many by the merging. If ANYONE involved with the forums who has responsibility enough that they could claim with certainty that if some retired setting's fans achieved this wondrous benchmark of consistent 25 posts per day, that by achieving the benchmark the setting would be rewarded with its own distinct forum . . . we fans all would have something to work for.
But they haven't said this. And I don't think they ever will. I don't think they want us fans of retired settings to truly achieve our own forums. I think it is something more than just 25 posts per day, because when some retired setting's fans achieve this 25 posts per day benchmark, I believe, they will move the goal posts to something that is completely unachievable.
Until someone with responsibility says 25 posts will actually matter, I believe it is just a canard.
-Those are the guidelines. As the Forgotten Realms section had only one area to post in, and we now have two, based on our posting habits, I can attest to the fact that boards are indeed split when they reach the specified criteria. If I brought it up, and began "making a stink" about it, the Forgotten Realms: Realmslore section could be split again, as it's average is above the specified threads-per-day benchmarks. I'm not, right now, because I, personally, have no idea how to split the section again, but...
-I'm sorry if you take this the wrong way, but to claim something otherwise is being needlessly paranoid or conspiracy-theory minded.
-Nothing has been snuffed out. The space to continue posting exists right here, where we are all posting. Using havard's analogy, the house that was there was knocked over, but you still have a house. It's not the same exact house, but it's a house.
So let me get this straight....
You booted all the "defunct" fans out of their nice, cozy little home, relocated them to some cheap ghetto projects where it's painfully obvious the board mods want it to become just as "defunct" as the settings said fans aggravatingly refuse to give up, and then the best you can come up with as a defense is a rather sarcastic sounding "if you don't like the new hovel it's not our problem" sort of reply?
May we please
pretty please
with sugar on top :D
Have separate forums for: Mystara,DarkSun,Birthright,Spelljammer,Greyhawk,Dragonlance,Planescape,and any other game worlds that I missed?
Please?
EDIT: I took the "Master of the Obvious" thing as a swipe at LK. If that's not how it was intended, then disregard the first paragraph of my post.
Re-reading my post I can see how one could take it as a swipe, sorry LK that was not the intent if that's how you felt. You are right though, things here have become a paradox, but WotC broke the trust first. People have been offended by that.
You know I think this thread alone might be getting close to that magic "25" post count :D
@Multizar: I really don't think that's going to do any good. "A" for effort though.
Dear Mr. Moderator of this forum,
May we please
pretty please
with sugar on top :D
Have separate forums for: Mystara,DarkSun,Birthright,Spelljammer,Greyhawk,Dragonlance,Planescape,and any other game worlds that I missed?
Please?
You forgot the cherry on top :p
Wrecan certainly seemed to be speaking for more than just himself. I know he was leading the discussion about the forum reorganization.
I am unable to speak for anybody but myself. I have no official position at Wizards. I am a Forum Lead for the DM Advice board. Anything I do outside that board is as a regular forum member with no more influence than you or anybody else.
When I say "we" I was referring to participants in the thread about the forum reorganization. I did not "lead" the discussion, though I was one of the more active participants and started a few threads about it.
My point was that I did raise the spectre that people who didn't like the reorganization might leave and go elsewhere. CM acknowledged that could happen and seemed to think that it made sense that people who wanted forums where posting was infrequent should find forums where posting is infrequent.
CM's preference is for forums where new people can come in and expect that if they post a topic it will be seen by a substantial number of people very quickly and that it will not disappear from view very quickly either.
The best way to measure that is to measure traffic in the form of active threads in a given period. CM decided "per day" was the appropriate period. They're looking for boards were substantial people check in once a day.
The Other Worlds forums simply didn't come close to meeting this criteria.
I'm sorry CM didn't post messages in each Other Worlds forum. After I saw that issue, I tried to post warnings to people in other forums when consolidation or other discussed changes might happen to them. (Sadly, I have learned that very few people read stickied threads, but that's another story.)
I understand that people are upset. I know that CM understands it because they read the threads with my posts telling them people would be upset. It's not that they don't care. I believe they do. But they have many cares, and one of those cares (as CM has explained in several threads) is setting standards for the forums as a whole and determining what the character of those forums will be.
you'd think they'd be more interested in smoothing things over with a large number of consumers. (Of course, if they're just looking at the post count here, they probably don't think there are that many angry consumers to deal with.
I think that's accurate. It's not just the thread count here, but the thread and post count in the individual boards before the mergers. The numbers are very small. (I know people had suggested taking post counts into effect -- that's more difficult to do, and when I did do it briefly I didn't find that the numbers were significantly different.)
It's probably not doing any good, though, because I doubt that WotC is listening or that they care....)
CM has said they're reading these threads. But you're right that it won't do much good, not because they don't care, but because they have to care about other things as well.
-Mike has confirmed that he is indeed familiar with this thread.
And he has yet to make an appearance.
Here's what I'd like: I'd like him to post a response in this thread explaining why the thread-count criterion is the only one that matters to them, and why they didn't feel that declaring the individual worlds as the lowest, non-mergeable element was unacceptable. I'd like to know why that would be so much worse than taking a course of action that was expected to drive people away. Why not do something that would court the other-worlds communities and draw them in?
I suppose he'd say they didn't expect anyone to be attracted to the forums by leaving the other worlds separate - but what would it have hurt to try?
I am unable to speak for anybody but myself. I have no official position at Wizards. I am a Forum Lead for the DM Advice board. Anything I do outside that board is as a regular forum member with no more influence than you or anybody else.
When I say "we" I was referring to participants in the thread about the forum reorganization. I did not "lead" the discussion, though I was one of the more active participants and started a few threads about it.
My point was that I did raise the spectre that people who didn't like the reorganization might leave and go elsewhere. CM acknowledged that could happen and seemed to think that it made sense that people who wanted forums where posting was infrequent should find forums where posting is infrequent.
CM's preference is for forums where new people can come in and expect that if they post a topic it will be seen by a substantial number of people very quickly and that it will not disappear from view very quickly either.
The best way to measure that is to measure traffic in the form of active threads in a given period. CM decided "per day" was the appropriate period. They're looking for boards were substantial people check in once a day.
I wasn't trying to imply that it was your doing or that you hold any official position. My point was that it sounded like you had at least been in touch with Community Management, that you had raised the likelihood of people being upset, and that they made the change anyway. To me, that says that CM knew what they were doing, that they made this change with their eyes open to the consequences.
My point was that it sounded like you had at least been in touch with Community Management, that you had raised the likelihood of people being upset, and that they made the change anyway.
I did, in public threads. I have had no private conversations with anybody at Wizards about any of the changes to the forums.
CM knew what they were doing, that they made this change with their eyes open to the consequences.
I believe that is accurate. I believe it is inaccurate to say they didn't care about the forumgoers. If there was a way they could accommodate all their multivarious demands, I'm pretty sure they'd do it. They couldn't in this instance.
I don't think that decision will be reversed by people merely demanding it be changed. Individual worlds will only get their own forums when it is demonstrated there is a sufficiently vibrant community to warrant one. And vibrancy is measure by activity.
I don't think that decision will be reversed by people merely demanding it be changed.
At one point, early on, I thought that making enough noise here would make a difference. But it quickly became apparent to me that what you're saying is true: they're not going to change this just because we tell them we want them to.
Individual worlds will only get their own forums when it is demonstrated there is a sufficiently vibrant community to warrant one. And vibrancy is measure by activity.
By activity here, of course. It would be interesting to compare the activity in this forum with the combined activity at The Piazza and Canonfire! and Planewalker and The Arena and Birthright.net and the Dragonlance Forums and Cafe de Nuit.
It would be interesting to compare the activity in this forum with the combined activity at The Piazza and Canonfire! and Planewalker and The Arena and Birthright.net and the Dragonlance Forums and Cafe de Nuit.
Sure, that would indeed be interesting. It would also be interesting to compare those other forums with the meager activity in the various Other Worlds forums before the merger.
Sure, that would indeed be interesting. It would also be interesting to compare those other forums with the meager activity in the various Other Worlds forums before the merger.
Is there still a way to do that?
Using only the threads and posts since 9/16, the number is 3.1, which, oddly enough, is an increase in aggregate activity of about a half-day of turnaround, meaning the Other Worlds board may actually be slightly busier aggregated than when they were separate forums. (It doesn't make sense to me either.)
-It becomes hypocritical when, as Jaid, said, people "[refer others] to a place where they can actually have a discussion, because that's where the community is, and that's where the community is being built", rather than building the community here, and complain about the lack of community at the same time. It's akin to telling everyone to leave me alone, and then being angry that no one wants to hang out with me. Note, I'm not accusing anyone specifically of anything, but it is the general feeling that the community is giving off since the forum mergers
except i'm not complaining about a lack of a community, i'm complaining about a lack of tools to build the community. please stop putting words into my mouth.
wrecan, the difference between not caring and caring, but not caring enough to do anything at all is not particularly significant. i would still point out that they don't even care enough to take the time to make a single post here to say "hey, we actually do care". if they don't even care enough to have offered us an explanation of what was going to happen in the part of the forums we actually read, and they don't even care enough to come over here and say that they do care and offer us some kind of suggestion for how these forums could actually ever be split in a way that will actually benefit them (ie splitting in two, or even 3 or 4, is still going to leave everyone unhappy with the situation), i might acknowledge that they do care at all.
as it stands, they don't even care enough to come here and talk to us about it. if you can sell me on a way to split this section in two that will actually make a difference, i might care enough to try and build a community here. but if their system is that we need to get 200 threads per day before we get these forums to the point where they are actually sufficiently active to be where we want them to be, then i'm not even going to bother trying. it simply isn't worth the effort. that system does not work for this section of the boards.
It would be interesting to see what the highest level of traffic was in each forum, measured either by new posts or new threads or perhaps by the number of discrete individuals viewing threads (don't know if they even kept track of that). And it would be interesting to see at what point that changed (was it different for each forum, or did they all change about the same time, or were some just never all that busy) and try to determine what else happened around that time that might have caused the change.
Anecdotally, I had noticed that there were names I used to see around the Greyhawk forum years ago that I just stopped seeing. And I know there were some people who would drop by occasionally, but who usually frequented the separate Living Greyhawk forum. And once 4E was announced, and a separate 4E Greyhawk forum was created, it seemed that traffic in the original Greyhawk forum slowed even more - and there were many people from the old forum that I never saw post anything in the 4E Greyhawk forum.
People were already leaving before the forum reorganization, but why? Could something have been done to reverse it, instead of doing what they did (which only accelerated it)?
See, this is the kind of question that G_Z could probably answer, if he would only stop by....
You booted all the "defunct" fans out of their nice, cozy little home, relocated them to some cheap ghetto projects where it's painfully obvious the board mods want it to become just as "defunct" as the settings said fans aggravatingly refuse to give up, and then the best you can come up with as a defense is a rather sarcastic sounding "if you don't like the new hovel it's not our problem" sort of reply?
-*I* didn't do anything.
-That said, why is it "some cheap ghetto projects"? If, and I don't have the numbers from the various different settings' sections before the merger, activity continued as it used to, you'd have a nice hub of activity.
Re-reading my post I can see how one could take it as a swipe, sorry LK that was not the intent if that's how you felt.
-No, I did not take it as an insult. Thank you for clearing that up, regardless, though.
You know I think this thread alone might be getting close to that magic "25" post count :D
-The number of times a single thread is posted in isn't counted. It's a shame, though, because, as Brom and/or havard pointed out, and as I can attest to in my own section, single threads often get plenty of activity throughout a single day.
-But, were I doing the counting, I wouldn't know how to quantify that into anything.
Please keep your posts polite, respectful, and on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks.
And he has yet to make an appearance.
Here's what I'd like: I'd like him to post a response in this thread explaining why the thread-count criterion is the only one that matters to them, and why they didn't feel that declaring the individual worlds as the lowest, non-mergeable element was unacceptable. I'd like to know why that would be so much worse than taking a course of action that was expected to drive people away. Why not do something that would court the other-worlds communities and draw them in?
-I can't speak for him, but as has been brought up, what other ways are there to measure activity? Threads-per-day is simply the easiest thing to measure. Posts that are of value to the community? Very subjective? What constitutes something that is of value to the community? Posts in a single thread, per day? If a single thread got 30 replies every day, and the next one hasn't had a post since two years ago, it's obvious that there's a problem. Posts that are helpful? Again, very subjective. I recall recently seeing a post in the Community Business section talking about other ways to measure activity, in a meaningful way. If you have an idea, I suggest you share it there.
except i'm not complaining about a lack of a community, i'm complaining about a lack of tools to build the community. please stop putting words into my mouth.
-There's no lack of anything. There is a section to post threads directly related to the various defunct TSR/WotC settings, isn't there? Yes, yes there is. The only thing is lacking is posts, to build the community, from the ground up.
Also, as Jaid pointed out we have built at community elsewhere, so that's not really the point either.
The reason I am posting in this thread is because I am frustrated that WotC does not see the value in what they have destroyed here. Keeping people here to talk about the old worlds was actually a way of keeping a segment of their consumer market happy. Not just happy either, but close to WotC, which would have meant a way to introduce to us new products more easily. Sure, it was a small segment of the market, but taking care of the small consumer groups ins good business. Driving them away is bad business.
I don't hate WotC. In fact I wish WotC to succeed. That is why I am posting here. Because I would like to see my segment of the market and WotC get along. This decision to merge the Old World Forums was a big mistake. Everyone can see that now. Comparing it to merging of the Forgotten Realms Forums or some of the rules forums is a waste of time. These are completely different situations. Setting the same rules for each subforum is silly, because they are completely different animals. WotC should have realized that the Old Worlds (and lets throw in the OOP Rules Forum as well) were special cases. Expecting these boards to be as active as the rest is ridiculous. The ones loosing out on this are primarily WotC. And the Gleemax community. Not alot, but a little. This is a bad way of running business. Was anything gained from it? LK says yes, but I think no. Nothing was gained from this. And something was lost.
By the way LK, I suggest you rexamine your posts in this thread. Try to imagine what someone who loved these old forums would feel like when reading your comments. They hurt.
Havard
I am frustrated that WotC does not see the value in what they have destroyed here.
I think they see it, and saw it at the time. But they didn't feel that value merited making an exception to the overall plan for the forum.
I understand that fans of out-of-print worlds wanted to be able to keep their own individual forums for their worlds, even if it only got one or two threads a month.
But I agree with CM that the value of those forums did not warrant making an exception. Obviously, those upset by the decision disagree. They have made a new home for themselves elsewhere.
I'm glad for that. I'm glad people can find a place to discuss the topics they love. That place never had to be these forums.
CM needed to decide what these forums were to be for. Were they a place to generate vibrant discussion, or were they to be a sprawling terrain of inconsistently populated forums each with their own cultures, traditions and aesthetics? CM went for the former. I can't blame them. I'm sorry that's disappointing to those who liked the way things were.
Sure, it was a small segment of the market, but taking care of the small consumer groups ins good business. Driving them away is bad business.
Not always. I know that sounds odd, but it's true. Keeping a very small consumer segment around simply for history's sake is not always good business, especially if doing so is interfering with a larger aesthetic plan.
This decision to merge the Old World Forums was a big mistake. Everyone can see that now.
I don't see it that way. I'd be surprised if CM thought they erred.
The people upset "now" are the people who were upset nine months ago when the consolidation occurred. I don't know that anybody has changed their opinion of the consolidation in that interim.
Setting the same rules for each subforum is silly
And I think that's the crux. I don't think it's silly. I think consistency is the essence of branding and one think D&D has suffered from for the last 30 years has been a consistent brand image.
I am not trying to hurt anybody's feelings. I am simply trying to explain the reasoning for the decision that was made, as I -- an individual with no official position at WotC -- understand it.
Comparing it to merging of the Forgotten Realms Forums or some of the rules forums is a waste of time. These are completely different situations.
-Specifically concerning the Forgotten Realms, how so? Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms. Both are D&D settings. The difference is one is defunct, and the other is still being supported. Mystara and the Forgotten Realms. Both are D&D settings. The difference is one is defunct, and the other is still being supported. What's the difference. They're all campaign settings, with fan followings.
Setting the same rules for each subforum is silly, because they are completely different animals. WotC should have realized that the Old Worlds (and lets throw in the OOP Rules Forum as well) were special cases.
-I disagree, here. Everyone should have the same criteria applied to them equally. If an exception is made here, why not there, and there, and there and there?
Or to quote Henry Ford - "You can have it in any color, as long as it´s black".
Which seems more modern in terms of marketing?
If someone has been around for as long as the veterans of these forums, and they still come back for more, wouldn´t it make sense from a business perspective to keep them happy - considering their life-time customer value?
I think they see it, and saw it at the time. But they didn't feel that value merited making an exception to the overall plan for the forum.
Then seeing, and realizing are different things.
I understand that fans of out-of-print worlds wanted to be able to keep their own individual forums for their worlds, even if it only got one or two threads a month.
Again, one of the terms used here is "thread count", which I suggest comes out unfairly on the Worlds Forums since they are less inclined to have discussions in the form of "question - answer - new thread - question -answer" which a forum about Feats might have. We had 10 page threads about the History of an elven tribe. I'm sure we could have broken that up into many more threads had we known that was what was being counted.
The point is though, that with a few exceptions, the forums were not dead. The Mystara forum had many active threads each day, even if it didnt reach the magic number.
But I agree with CM that the value of those forums did not warrant making an exception. Obviously, those upset by the decision disagree. They have made a new home for themselves elsewhere.
Because you dont see the value. Because you compare a forum about a setting to a forum about one small aspect of a ruleset. Can you see that there is a difference?
I'm glad for that. I'm glad people can find a place to discuss the topics they love. That place never had to be these forums.
Yes, thats fine. But WotC is the one loosing out on that. With the current RPG market, WotC should be tying its customers closer to itself rather than driving them away.
CM needed to decide what these forums were to be for. Were they a place to generate vibrant discussion, or were they to be a sprawling terrain of inconsistently populated forums each with their own cultures, traditions and aesthetics? CM went for the former. I can't blame them. I'm sorry that's disappointing to those who liked the way things were.
But your descriptions do not apply to the forums I frequented. And what happened to this place? Is it a place of vibrant discussion? Thats what we used to have.
Not always. I know that sounds odd, but it's true. Keeping a very small consumer segment around simply for history's sake is not always good business, especially if doing so is interfering with a larger aesthetic plan.
Not simply because of history. Because of money. That's what business is about. Keeping us here would make us want to buy more WotC products. Aestetics getting in the way of money?
I don't see it that way. I'd be surprised if CM thought they erred.
Depends what their intentions were. Im not talking about the 25 thread count. What was their intention? To stimulate to more discussion? Well, in this part of the forums, they clearly failed. Whether they see it or not is another matter.
And I think that's the crux. I don't think it's silly. I think consistency is the essence of branding and one think D&D has suffered from for the last 30 years has been a consistent brand image.
Why not recognize the different nature of different forums? Are we stuck in the 50s where organic designs are scoffed at because everyone should fit into the same pigeon holes?
OTOH, if you are talking about the fragmentation of the fan base between the settings that haunted TSR, that is something else. If you are saying this was a concious choice in order to kill the old worlds to keep the fan base more unified, things stand differently. OTOH, I thought that was the policy of the Old WotC and that with 4e we were indeed going to see more settings.
I am not trying to hurt anybody's feelings. I am simply trying to explain the reasoning for the decision that was made, as I -- an individual with no official position at WotC -- understand it.
You are okay. But your statements seem to suggest that you are very occupied with figures, numbers and shapes. The same may be true about WotC. The problem is that the truth hides between the statistics, not within them. Our settings have been alive for decades. They will still remain. They are an untapped resource for WotC. It will be their loss if they fail to take advantage of what they have.
Havard
-Specifically concerning the Forgotten Realms, how so? Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms. Both are D&D settings. The difference is one is defunct, and the other is still being supported. Mystara and the Forgotten Realms. Both are D&D settings. The difference is one is defunct, and the other is still being supported. What's the difference. They're all campaign settings, with fan followings.
Oh I dont expect to get treated the same as FR. But as you say, you guys have 3 forums. Noone is demanding that each setting should have that many.
-I disagree, here. Everyone should have the same criteria applied to them equally. If an exception is made here, why not there, and there, and there and there?
Again, not talking about the FR forum. But comparing rules forums to setting forums for instance. Those are different natured beasts. And we have already mentioned the fact that by merging two different world forums you will be forcing together two groups of fans who might have nothing in common. That alone should be enough to see that different standards need be applied. This is really just about common sense.
And, lets include the OOP Rules Forum. Merging the small group of guys who liked to talk about AD&D1e, 2e and Classic D&D as well as other obscure games, with the horde who likes to talk about 3E. It is clear that all non-3E discussions will drown there.
If I were in charge of the WotC forums, I would like all fans of D&D to feel at home here. Sure, I would stomp out discussions if they were all bile and negative comments, but I dont recognize any of that in the forums that are now lost. It is simply bad for business.
Havard
A common rule of thumb is that 20% of your customers constitute 80% of your life-time earnings. If it so, would you not make exceptions for them?
If someone has been around for as long as the veterans of these forums, and they still come back for more, wouldn´t it make sense from a business perspective to keep them happy - considering their life-time customer value?
This is someone who clearly knows what he is talking about!
Havard
Then seeing, and realizing are different things.
No, disagreement does not mean misunderstanding. If you are going to assume that people who disagree with you must be misunderstanding you then the discussion is pointless.
Again, one of the terms used here is "thread count", which I suggest comes out unfairly on the Worlds Forums
It doesn't matter. The point wa snot to hand out awards based on what you subjectively feel is the proper way to rate the merit of a forum. I explained why active thread count was used. You don't like the criteria because the result mandates consolidation of the Other Worlds forums.
Yes, the Other Worlds forums were unlikely to meet the criteria. That's why they got merged. It wasn't done to spite you.
The Mystara forum had many active threads each day, even if it didnt reach the magic number.
No, it didn't. I was checking the Other Worlds boards as I was trying to advocate that many Worlds should keep their own forums. But as much as I massaged the numbers, the numbers always came out the same: FR and Eberron deserved their own boards. (I actually advocated that Eberron deserved two boards and Greyhawk one, despite the numbers, but that didn't happen.) Nobody else came close. Even Greyhawk (which was the third most active of the Other Worlds) would have needed a fourfold increase in active threads.
I sympathize, but let's not rewrite history.
Because you dont see the value.
I see the value. But I also see other values and I can accept that not everybody measures those respective values the same way. Can you?
But your descriptions do not apply to the forums I frequented. And what happened to this place? Is it a place of vibrant discussion? Thats what we used to have.
No, you didn't. It's about as vibrant now as it was when it was a plethora of disparate forums. I just rechecked the numbers. The problem is that posting was so infrequent that twenty people leaving simply hasn't affected those numbers substantially.
Keeping us here would make us want to buy more WotC products.
It's not all about you. Yes, some customers were driven away to make the forums more appealing to new customers.
in this part of the forums, they clearly failed.
Yes, but you're still insisting on looking at ths discretely from the forums you care about. WotC doesn't have that luxury.
OTOH, if you are talking about the fragmentation of the fan base between the settings that haunted TSR, that is something else. If you are saying this was a concious choice in order to kill the old worlds to keep the fan base more unified, things stand differently.
I'm saying neither.
You are okay. But your statements seem to suggest that you are very occupied with figures, numbers and shapes.
No, that's not it at all. I'm sorry I can't explain it. I've tried several times now. I don't know how else to describe this. I don't feel that this discussion is going to be productive. I'm sorry I can't make you feel better about this. I'm sorry I can't convince you that I understand your concerns, but simply weight them differently.
And let me add that I didn't come up with this criteria. It wasn't even exclusively developed by CM. Autumn_Serene is actually one of the people who suggested the 25-50 active thread target, explained why and Gamer_Zer0 then said he thought that her reasoning made sense. (I know, that based on their future animosity, it's surprising that this policy was born from a quite reasonable and civil discussion between G0 and Autumn and others, but that's how it happened.) Once that consensus was reached I did my best to try to wriggle the most forums out of that criteria.
So please don't assume that because I'm defending the policy that the policy is all I care about.
Please understand why I won't be returning to this thread. Please don't be offended by my silence. Again, I am sorry.
-wrecan.
It doesn't matter. The point was not to hand out awards based on what you subjectively feel is the proper way to rate the merit of a forum. I explained why active thread count was used. You don't like the criteria because the result mandates consolidation of the Other Worlds forums.
I don't like the criteria because the result gives a false impression of the level of activity on boards where posts were more often collected in fewer threads rather than having many threads with few posts in them, such as a rules forum is likely to have.
Yes, the Other Worlds forums were unlikely to meet the criteria. That's why they got merged. It wasn't done to spite you.
Don't be silly. I am sad at the loss, but I dont take this decision personally. I do however think there is room for looking at more than one side of a statistic when making decisions like this.
No, it didn't. I was checking the Other Worlds boards as I was trying to advocate that many Worlds should keep their own forums. But as much as I massaged the numbers, the numbers always came out the same: FR and Eberron deserved their own boards. (I actually advocated that Eberron deserved two boards and Greyhawk one, despite the numbers, but that didn't happen.) Nobody else came close. Even Greyhawk (which was the third most active of the Other Worlds) would have needed a fourfold increase in active threads.
I was a bit shocked when I first read this. They I realized you were looking at thread count. The Mystara forum kept track on posting frequency. It found that the Dark Sun Forum was by far the most active forum of the Old Worlds, followed by Dragonlance. Mystara was the third most active forum.
I sympathize, but let's not rewrite history.
There is often more than one side to the truth. Choosing how to read statistics is a powerful weapon.
I see the value. But I also see other values and I can accept that not everybody measures those respective values the same way. Can you?
Sure. I have no choice. But I still think the other side of the truth needs to come out.
No, you didn't. It's about as vibrant now as it was when it was a plethora of disparate forums. I just rechecked the numbers. The problem is that posting was so infrequent that twenty people leaving simply hasn't affected those numbers substantially.
There are by far fewer posts per day in this forum than in the old Mystara forum alone. The Dark Sun people would have laughed. Besides, seeing that 200 people have joined the Piazza since this merger occurred. I suspect the people who have left are a little more than 20. And most of the fans of Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and Dragonlance arent even among those 200.
It's not all about you. Yes, some customers were driven away to make the forums more appealing to new customers.
I never made this about me. But I also dont accept that this was a neccessary change. Not overall. Not without warning. Not for every forum.
Yes, but you're still insisting on looking at ths discretely from the forums you care about. WotC doesn't have that luxury.
I think we all see that this matter could have been handled so much better.
Please understand why I won't be returning to this thread. Please don't be offended by my silence. Again, I am sorry.
Thanks for your time. It's not you I am trying to convince anyway, but its been interesting chatting.
Havard
Oh I dont expect to get treated the same as FR. But as you say, you guys have 3 forums. Noone is demanding that each setting should have that many.
-Two forums.
-Why don't you expect to have the same criteria applied equally? Again, what's the difference? Both are setting locations, with the only difference of one being currently in support, while the others don't currently have support (though, Greyhawk kinda did, and Ravenloft and Dragonlance both did, in 3e. And, of course, DRAGON articles touched on all of them.
Again, not talking about the FR forum. But comparing rules forums to setting forums for instance. Those are different natured beasts.
-And, regardless, then you have X group saying, "Well, why weren't these standards changed for us?", Y group saying the same thing, and so on and so on. Red Mask? Wasn't that an obscure campaign setting? How often did discussions about that ever come up? Say, a two fans of Red Mask appeared, and believed that that setting should have it's own section. They basically post back and forth with each other. If you were in charge, what would you do, in this situation?
And we have already mentioned the fact that by merging two different world forums you will be forcing together two groups of fans who might have nothing in common. That alone should be enough to see that different standards need be applied. This is really just about common sense.
-Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but that's a whole separate issue. That all of the various settings are defunct D&D settings is the lowest common denominator. Even when they had their own sections, they did not garner high threads-per-day, which was the criterion that was measured to determine these things. I mean, let's be truthful here: It wasn't as if there were ten sections that had a 50 threads-per-day merged into one section, here.
And, lets include the OOP Rules Forum. Merging the small group of guys who liked to talk about AD&D1e, 2e and Classic D&D as well as other obscure games, with the horde who likes to talk about 3E. It is clear that all non-3E discussions will drown there.
-3e is an out-of-print ruleset. I still play it, and plan on playing it for a long time, and plenty of other people are planning the same, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter. It's a out-of-print ruleset, just like 1e, 2e, basic D&D, and whatever else there is.
-Two forums.
My bad, sorry.
-Why don't you expect to have the same criteria applied equally? Again, what's the difference? Both are setting locations, with the only difference of one being currently in support, while the others don't currently have support (though, Greyhawk kinda did, and Ravenloft and Dragonlance both did, in 3e. And, of course, DRAGON articles touched on all of them
.
FR and Ebberon were the only settings that were truly supported by WotC. What I am saying is, I understand if these settings get a special treatment.
-And, regardless, then you have X group saying, "Well, why weren't these standards changed for us?", Y group saying the same thing, and so on and so on. Red Mask? Wasn't that an obscure campaign setting? How often did discussions about that ever come up? Say, a two fans of Red Mask appeared, and believed that that setting should have it's own section. They basically post back and forth with each other. If you were in charge, what would you do, in this situation?
This is not a democracy. Sure people would complain. But lets say the "3E Class Feature" forum was merged with the "3E Skills & Feats" forum. Would that hurt the 3E Class Feature guys, as much as it hurt the Greyhawk guys when all of the Old Worlds were merged? Are there even "3E Class Feature" guys?
As for Masque of the Red Death, I'm willing to discuss that if it ever comes up. Its not as if the Mystara fans are demanding a forum each for Red Steel, the Hollow World, Thunder Rift, Blackmoor and its other subsettings. I think we are pretty reasonable.
-Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but that's a whole separate issue. That all of the various settings are defunct D&D settings is the lowest common denominator. Even when they had their own sections, they did not garner high threads-per-day, which was the criterion that was measured to determine these things. I mean, let's be truthful here: It wasn't as if there were ten sections that had a 50 threads-per-day merged into one section, here.
Again. Threads per day counting gives an impression that this section was dead, which it wasnt. But ofcourse, setting a standard that only supported settings can hope to achieve means the results are given.
-3e is an out-of-print ruleset. I still play it, and plan on playing it for a long time, and plenty of other people are planning the same, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter. It's a out-of-print ruleset, just like 1e, 2e, basic D&D, and whatever else there is.
Sure. But do you see anyone talking about 2e, 1e or Classic anymore? The forum has been flooded by 3e'ers. 3E still gets 4 or so forums, but one of them it shares with pre3e forums.
Sure, I understand that WotC wants people to primarily talk about 4e. But driving potential customers away like this is still a bad idea.
Havard
You do realize as long as you posting here, you run the risk of me catching up to you. Ha! Ha!:D
havard,
You do realize as long as you posting here, you run the risk of me catching up to you. Ha! Ha!:D
Hehe, I'm not too worried.
But Multizar is right isnt he? That I am wasting my time here?
Havard
FR and Ebberon were the only settings that were truly supported by WotC. What I am saying is, I understand if these settings get a special treatment.
-They're not, and didn't. Like Ravenloft, Planescape, Dragonlance, and all of the others that I didn't just mention, the Forgotten Realms section didn't meet the specified criteria, as it was, and the boards were all merged. Same thing with Eberron. We've just worked with the system to get a second board, however. And, it was not because it's the Forgotten Realms, a supported setting. Look at wrecan's forum post numbers. Posters posted, and a new section was made to accommodate the traffic.
This is not a democracy. Sure people would complain. But lets say the "3E Class Feature" forum was merged with the "3E Skills & Feats" forum. Would that hurt the 3E Class Feature guys, as much as it hurt the Greyhawk guys when all of the Old Worlds were merged? Are there even "3E Class Feature" guys?
-Right, this isn't a democracy. That's why everything gets applied equally and the same by those who are in charged, based on their opinions on what is good for the boards, what is bad for the boards, and whatever other things they think about.
As for Masque of the Red Death, I'm willing to discuss that if it ever comes up. Its not as if the Mystara fans are demanding a forum each for Red Steel, the Hollow World, Thunder Rift, Blackmoor and its other subsettings. I think we are pretty reasonable.
-I think you misunderstood what I meant. If two Masque of the Red Death fans (That was the one I was thinking of!) were regular community members, and wanted a section to discuss Masque of the Red Death between each other, how would you handle their request, if you were in charge?
Again. Threads per day counting gives an impression that this section was dead, which it wasnt. But ofcourse, setting a standard that only supported settings can hope to achieve means the results are given.
-How else can activity be gauged? How would you you quantify multiple posts in a thread? Things can be spammish, or not relating to the actual thread (as in, "Hey, I heard you got a new dog. What kind of dog is it?"), and so on.
Sure. But do you see anyone talking about 2e, 1e or Classic anymore? The forum has been flooded by 3e'ers. 3E still gets 4 or so forums, but one of them it shares with pre3e forums.
-I don't post or visit there, so I can't tell you. That said, if someone wanted to post a question pertaining to an older ruleset, nothing is preventing them from doing so. Their question is just as likely to be "swept aside" as it is to be answered by someone familiar with the rules.
Sure, I understand that WotC wants people to primarily talk about 4e. But driving potential customers away like this is still a bad idea.
-They aren't driving them away. Reorganizing the boards doesn't equate to driving people away. Nothing inherently connected to the reorganization is causing people to leave. Their own personal ideas/preferences/opinions/etc. are what is makes someone leave. For example, when the Forgotten Realms section was merged from six threads to one, I could have left. But, I didn't. Everyone makes the decision.
-Right, this isn't a democracy. That's why everything gets applied equally and the same by those who are in charged, based on their opinions on what is good for the boards, what is bad for the boards, and whatever other things they think about.
Lack of democracy doesnt mean you have to treat everyone the same either. You actually have the chance of making allowances should you want to.
-I think you misunderstood what I meant. If two Masque of the Red Death fans (That was the one I was thinking of!) were regular community members, and wanted a section to discuss Masque of the Red Death between each other, how would you handle their request, if you were in charge?
I'm not discussing hypotheticals. What people have asked for is that the forums they actually used to have are brought back.
-How else can activity be gauged? How would you you quantify multiple posts in a thread? Things can be spammish, or not relating to the actual thread (as in, "Hey, I heard you got a new dog. What kind of dog is it?"), and so on.
Spam should be deleted. General chatty messages do have a value in the form of community building.
-I don't post or visit there, so I can't tell you. That said, if someone wanted to post a question pertaining to an older ruleset, nothing is preventing them from doing so. Their question is just as likely to be "swept aside" as it is to be answered by someone familiar with the rules.
But it is fairly obvious that they will be lost behind the 25 3E threads isnt it?
-They aren't driving them away. Reorganizing the boards doesn't equate to driving people away. Nothing inherently connected to the reorganization is causing people to leave. Their own personal ideas/preferences/opinions/etc. are what is makes someone leave.
In theory it doesnt equal driving people away. But we can all see that it did. It is not people's personal ideas/preferences/opinions/etc. alone that has made people leave. It was a reaction to something that happened here.
For example, when the Forgotten Realms section was merged from six threads to one, I could have left. But, I didn't. Everyone makes the decision.
We have talked about that before. You guys had one forum to talk about the FR. The Dark Sun people have 0 forums to talk about Dark Sun without having to deal with people from all the other worlds. Imagine if the Ebberon Forum and the FR forums had been merged into one. Isnt that a dramatically different situation than having one forum for just FR fans?
Havard
Lack of democracy doesnt mean you have to treat everyone the same either. You actually have the chance of making allowances should you want to.
-Again, when you make allowances for some people, then others want allowances for themselves.
I'm not discussing hypotheticals. What people have asked for is that the forums they actually used to have are brought back.
-Masque of the Red Death had it's own section, lumped in with the 'Other Settings' in the old format. You are championing for Mystara, Dark Sun, and the others to have their own individual identities as sections again: What would you do with the two people who talk about the setting among themselves, and are championing for the Masque of the Red Death to have it's own individual identity as a section?
Spam should be deleted. General chatty messages do have a value in the form of community building.
-Which goes back to the problem of quantifying posts that are community building.
But it is fairly obvious that they will be lost behind the 25 3E threads isnt it?
-Not if people answer the question, no. And, why believe that no one would answer the question? How many people out there played 1e, and/or 2e, and now play 3e? Plenty.
In theory it doesnt equal driving people away. But we can all see that it did. It is not people's personal ideas/preferences/opinions/etc. alone that has made people leave. It was a reaction to something that happened here.
-Right, people's personal reactions, which is what I said (their ideas about what happened, their preferences to what they want to see, their opinions on what they want to see). The common denominator is that people, as individuals chose to either leave, or not leave. I chose not to leave. You chose not to leave. Bob might have chose to leave. Sally might have chose to leave. Why did they choose to leave? They decided to, based on what they saw. There isn't a sign anywhere saying, "LK and havard, you guys can stay. Bob, Sally, you have to go".
We have talked about that before. You guys had one forum to talk about the FR. The Dark Sun people have 0 forums to talk about Dark Sun without having to deal with people from all the other worlds. Imagine if the Ebberon Forum and the FR forums had been merged into one. Isnt that a dramatically different situation than having one forum for just FR fans?
-The point of the statement was that the section I visited primarily was changed in a manner that I disagreed with, much like the section you visited primarily was changed in a manner that you disagreed with. I could have left, you could have left. Neither of us did. We made the decisions to stay. Others made the decisions to leave. No one forced anyone to do anything, as I elaborated above.
I put forward the hypothesis that the threshold for level of activity (25 threads) and the method of defining activity (threads, not posts) was intentionally chosen to give Eberron and FR a forum, while denying it to others. There are plenty of other methods that could have been used, but I am focusing purely on the two that can (as I understand it) be objectively measured.
A lower thread count threshold would have meant DS or GH would have gained a forum of their own. Basing things on post count instead of thread count would have actually denied FR and Eberron their forums, while granting them to DL, DS, and Mystara. It was entirely within WotC's power to choose one of these.
Gentlemen, give me the ability to chose the facts and figures I wish, and I will endeavour to prove anything that you wish to have proven.
Now, I can't prove there was any intent to knock down these specific forums out of malice. Rather, I think WotC wanted to concentrate only on those products they intend to actively support. d20 Modern and its related forums have also been collapsed, and I don't know where that community has gone. I suspect WotC chose a threshold and citerion that would grant a forum to their favoured (read: supported) products, and at the same time, by having a publicly identifiable criterion, would give the impression of impartiality.
Impartiality be damned. Criteria be damned. It was a pragmatic business decision granted a veneer of respectability, nothing more. I'd respect WotC far more if they just said, "these are the products we intend actively supporting in future, we won't have forums for products we no longer actively support. Now go forth and multiply".
I'm not even angry at WotC really. They made a decision, right or wrong, to withdraw / reduce (depending on your emotionality on the issue) forum support, and we made a decision to rebuild our community in a place where it can get adequate support. no malice, no anger, just simple pragmatism. Call it a business decision if you like.
It's not all about you. Yes, some customers were driven away to make the forums more appealing to new customers.
How exactly does this make things more appealing to new customers? Say someone looks at last month's Dragon and sees the little article on Dark Sun and is interested in learning more about it. Before they could come and see a whole forum full of new rules and discussions about the setting history and anything else you can imagine.
Now they come here and find a jumbled mess with a few threads of something they're interested in easily accessible and have to sift through five hundred pages to find relevant material.
I don't know about you but that sounds super appealing to me.
This is someone who clearly knows what he is talking about!
Another rule of thumb is that 9 out of 10 unhappy customers don´t bother to voice a complaint and simply take their business elsewhere. Those who actually inform a company of their concerns generally do so because the product or service means a great deal to them. These customers are a blessing to any company, as they offer a chance to turn the experience around - a moment of truth, if you may. Eventually, though, their patience will wear thin as well.
Common for all 10 out of 10 is that they will typically gladly share their bad experiences and opinions - warranted or not - with their friends, coworkers, family and others. To top things off, you would really have to impress a customer to make him or her tell others about a good experience - in general people complain more than they praise, and it might seem unfair to the ones running the business, but it is the harsh truth.
We've already got them.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=260
This forum is for the discussing the possibility of these worlds updated to 4e. (I think.)
Mike has stated that the only 4th edition centric forums are those found in D&D Fundamentals, and that link you provided is at this time non-existent.
Maybe CS needs to get up with CM and both end up on the same page.
Way late to getting into this, but there is no reason to try to cram every setting into one forum while the 4th edition "roles" each have their own.
Unless the intent is to say that anything other than 4th edition is less than deserving of more than single forum, which I am sure is NOT the intent. Now that Gleemax has been discarded and in the process of being removed, there should be someone able to create the proper forums for each campaign setting to allow people to find things better that they wish to discuss.
Not sure how SpellJammer has the highest interest, but so be it. That just shows that each setting may need its own. I suspect FR would have the highest interest if it did not already have its own forums.
Setting the same rules for each subforum is silly, because they are completely different animals.
No, I can see the value in applying the same rules across the boards. The real issue is in whether or not each individual world should have been treated as an unmergeable entity. They could have done that, and still applied the split/merger thread-count criteria. If Mystara or Dark Sun or Spelljammer or any of the worlds had generated the kind of thread count that the Realms have right now, then they, too, would qualify for splitting. But the difference is that merging them all would not have been an option.
Don't get me wrong. I can see the opposing viewpoint. I'm sure that CM doesn't see anything wrong with what they did. They're not looking at building a community, they're just looking at how best to accommodate the community that's here now. If people choose to leave, that really doesn't matter to CM. It's just a matter of dealing with the people who stay. It's just a little disappointing that they see it that way.
-I can't speak for him, but as has been brought up, what other ways are there to measure activity? Threads-per-day is simply the easiest thing to measure. Posts that are of value to the community? Very subjective? What constitutes something that is of value to the community? Posts in a single thread, per day? If a single thread got 30 replies every day, and the next one hasn't had a post since two years ago, it's obvious that there's a problem. Posts that are helpful? Again, very subjective. I recall recently seeing a post in the Community Business section talking about other ways to measure activity, in a meaningful way. If you have an idea, I suggest you share it there.
You're still focused on measuring activity. If the next step is to establish new benchmarks, then that's still missing my point.
My point was, maybe there would be some value to the community in trying to draw people in by creating an environment that they'd like to use, instead of just adapting to the level of use that is there already. Maybe it wouldn't work, but maybe it would.
It's not all about you. Yes, some customers were driven away to make the forums more appealing to new customers.
I don't understand what would have made the forums less appealing to new customers if each world had been declared the lowest, unmergeable element. It's just one part of the boards, and if you don't care about the other worlds, you wouldn't even be looking at that part.
You talk all the time of "make allowances for some people, and everyone else will want their allowances".
-Because this is how Human nature works, yes.
I put forward the hypothesis that the threshold for level of activity (25 threads) and the method of defining activity (threads, not posts) was intentionally chosen to give Eberron and FR a forum, while denying it to others. There are plenty of other methods that could have been used, but I am focusing purely on the two that can (as I understand it) be objectively measured.
-Being as that Eberron does not even reach this benchmark of activity (now, at least), I am going to have to say that your theory has flaws. And, to me, it seems overly conspiracy-theory minded. Why were/are the individuals in charge of the boards here actively looking to deny others? As evidenced that there is an Other Published Worlds section, no one is saying to themselves, "Man, we hate the posters who play Mystara/Dragonlance/Spelljammer/etc. Let's kick 'em out, by leaving them no place to post their questions and ideas!".
Basing things on post count instead of thread count would have actually denied FR and Eberron their forums, while granting them to DL, DS, and Mystara.
-No, it would not have. Yesterday, I made a post in a thread early in the morning. When I returned at night, the thread had gone from one page, to six. This sort of thing is common (though, not at such a rapid pace).
You're still focused on measuring activity. If the next step is to establish new benchmarks, then that's still missing my point.
-There would need to be benchmarks to see what threads would qualify as staying the same, and what would qualify for changing, regardless. Remember, the entire structure of the boards (at least the D&D part) changed. Activity, it's the easiest thing to quantify and measure. Other things, not so easy.
My point was, maybe there would be some value to the community in trying to draw people in by creating an environment that they'd like to use, instead of just adapting to the level of use that is there already. Maybe it wouldn't work, but maybe it would.
-How do you know that the potential people who might be drawn to these message boards don't find the current format of this section as something they'd like to use?
-Being as that Eberron does not even reach this benchmark of activity (now, at least), I am going to have to say that your theory has flaws...
It did, back then.
Gentlemen, give me permission to use data sets from any time period I wish, regardless of that time period's relevance to the issue at hand, and I will endeavour to prove to you anything that you wish to be proven.
...And, to me, it seems overly conspiracy-theory minded. Why were/are the individuals in charge of the boards here actively looking to deny others? As evidenced that there is an Other Published Worlds section, no one is saying to themselves, "Man, we hate the posters who play Mystara/Dragonlance/Spelljammer/etc. Let's kick 'em out, by leaving them no place to post their questions and ideas!".
OK, so because I am seeing what may appear to be a conspiracy, that is proof that no such conspiracy exists? Come again? Maybe if I don't see a conspiracy, perhaps that would prove that one does exist, perhaps?
I say there was a conspiracy. Not one intended to hurt us, that was just an unintended, possibly unforeseen, certainly undesired side-effect. The conspiracy was created with the intent of consolidating the forums to maximise the visual presence of the product lines that WotC wishes to support at this time.
Personally, I don't regard that as a conspiracy. Rather, I see it as a pragmatic business decision. I don't grudge WotC for such a decision. Equally, I see no reason why WotC should be surprised, upset, or even disappointed when we leave, as they no longer offer a forum environment suitable to our needs.
-No, it would not have. Yesterday, I made a post in a thread early in the morning. When I returned at night, the thread had gone from one page, to six. This sort of thing is common (though, not at such a rapid pace).
You are being disingenuous. My summary of which forums would have received their own forum based on altered criteria are based on the forum activity as it was before the merger.
-Being as that Eberron does not even reach this benchmark of activity (now, at least), I am going to have to say that your theory has flaws.
I haven't been tracking the thread-count in the Eberron forum, so I find this very interesting. Has there been any discussion about merging Eberron into the Other Published Worlds forum? If not, why not? Eberron is in the same boat as every setting other than Forgotten Realms. Until 2009, there is no new Eberron product coming out. And yet, I am willing to bet that the Eberron forum will never seriously be considered for merger, even if the thread-count would justify such a move.
-How do you know that the potential people who might be drawn to these message boards don't find the current format of this section as something they'd like to use?
I can see how there might be some merit in the current format. I'd wager that people who have been rubbing elbows here would never have crossed paths if not for the merger. It gives an interesting opportunity to discuss multiple-world issues (not there there seem to have been many, in actual practice).
However, I don't think that there are many people here who actually prefer the current format. I've reached that conclusion by observing that a number of people have left, that the activity here is pretty low, and that the busiest thread in this forum seems to be this one.
I haven't been tracking the thread-count in the Eberron forum, so I find this very interesting. Has there been any discussion about merging Eberron into the Other Published Worlds forum? If not, why not? Eberron is in the same boat as every setting other than Forgotten Realms. Until 2009, there is no new Eberron product coming out. And yet, I am willing to bet that the Eberron forum will never seriously be considered for merger, even if the thread-count would justify such a move.
-I don't know. Eberron isn't in my lists of interests, so I don't pay it much mind. Personally speaking, being as that Eberron is going to be released next year, the posting rate will increase between now and then. It's hard enough to get things done around here, so it's likely that, were the Eberron thread merged with the Other Published Setting area, it'd be around the same time that posting picks up. That's just me thinking out loud, though.
I can see how there might be some merit in the current format. I'd wager that people who have been rubbing elbows here would never have crossed paths if not for the merger. It gives an interesting opportunity to discuss multiple-world issues (not there there seem to have been many, in actual practice).
-To just add to that, there are plenty of multiple-world issues, via the existence of Planescape and Spelljammer. Discussions and stuff in the context of metagame issues also become easier ("What is going to happen to X now?" "I don't know, but in Z, this happened.").
However, I don't think that there are many people here who actually prefer the current format. I've reached that conclusion by observing that a number of people have left, that the activity here is pretty low, and that the busiest thread in this forum seems to be this one.
-The fact that so many people are "resisting" the current format shows that they don't like it, obviously. But, I asked, specifically, "How do you know that the potential people who might be drawn to these message boards don't find the current format of this section as something they'd like to use?". As in, people who join in the future will not have known the "glory days", and as such, will not harbor any prejudices against the WotC boards for changing things, and so on and so on.
The fact that so many people are "resisting" the current format shows that they don't like it, obviously. But, I asked, specifically, "How do you know that the potential people who might be drawn to these message boards don't find the current format of this section as something they'd like to use?". As in, people who join in the future will not have known the "glory days", and as such, will not harbor any prejudices against the WotC boards for changing things, and so on and so on.
you know, the whole reason anyone bothers doing surveys is because if 600 out of 1000 people from a basic cross-section (let's say, in this case, people who read and post on internet forums about gaming) like or dislike something, then the odds are pretty good that the 60,000 (or however many) out of 100,000 (or however many) that they didn't ask will feel the same way.
so yeah, if the best case scenario is that a few people don't hate it so much that they refuse to even use it, i think that's a pretty good indicator that the people who come in from elsewhere aren't going to like it either.
-The fact that so many people are "resisting" the current format shows that they don't like it, obviously. But, I asked, specifically, "How do you know that the potential people who might be drawn to these message boards don't find the current format of this section as something they'd like to use?". As in, people who join in the future will not have known the "glory days", and as such, will not harbor any prejudices against the WotC boards for changing things, and so on and so on.
Oh, I see. Yes, when newbies stop by (IF they stop by - not sure how many people new to the game and/or the boards are going to know anything about any of these old settings or have any interest in learning about them, but that's a separate issue), they might be just fine with the current format. Of course, they wouldn't have seen the old format, so they probably wouldn't think much of it, unless they saw someone complaining about it - like people have been doing in this thread. So far, nobody has offered an opinion in this thread that the merger was a good thing. Maybe there are people out there quietly thinking it. Maybe there are people who will come here in the future, after this thread has died out (probably meaning those of us still arguing the issue have either given up or left), and never find themselves confronted with the issue.
I'll admit that some of this is colored by the fact that we were here before, when the settings each had their own forum, and we'd prefer that things had remained that way. We're probably not being objective. But that doesn't mean we don't have a point.
Obviously, nobody knows what potential future boards users will think. They might never think, "Why does Eberron have its own board and not Greyhawk?" Or maybe they will. I think that the people who care about the settings having their own forums are the people who are familiar with the settings, not the newbies.
Well, here's a thought: If you come to a board like this as a newbie, do you have any way of knowing whether there are people frequenting this board who know anything about a particular setting? At least before, if you went to the Greyhawk board, you knew you'd find people who knew about Greyhawk.
Other than my stickied thread about other websites, is there anyplace in this forum where a newbie could even find a list of old settings?
EDIT
Okay, there is this:
That comes from the "D&D Worlds" menu page. That's something, I suppose.
This is the place to discuss Alternity Products, Birthright, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Mystara, Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and other published worlds.
That comes from the "D&D Worlds" menu page. That's something, I suppose.
...i think that's a pretty good indicator that the people who come in from elsewhere aren't going to like it either.
-No it's not, because the two test sample groups ("old" and "new") have been acted upon by differing forces. If you were doing a study about weight gain/loss and your two samples were a person who ate a lot of fast food, was already out of shape, and doesn't exercise, and a person who eats healthy and balanced meals, is in good physical shape, and exercises, can you really trust the results you experiment yields? No, there is too much of a skew in your original data that is not being accounted for.
I'll admit that some of this is colored by the fact that we were here before, when the settings each had their own forum, and we'd prefer that things had remained that way. We're probably not being objective. But that doesn't mean we don't have a point.
-This has been most of the basis of most of the points I have made in this thread.
-This has been most of the basis of most of the points I have made in this thread.
And it seems likely that it's the point of view that CM has been operating from. Keeping or attracting any particular fan community is not a priority for CM. Their only interest is in finding the best way to deal with the people who are coming to the boards NOW.
What's myopic about that is that, if EVERYONE were to leave, then the boards would be VERY easy to manage, but they'd no longer be serving their purpose. Now, I suppose that CM rests comfortable in the certainty that the odds of everyone leaving are nearly nil, but that allows them to miss the fact that they are losing out on an opportunity to win over (and subsequently SELL TO) a good-sized section of the fanbase.
EDIT: And, as far as I can see, doing so would not have had any negative impact on anyone.
-*I* didn't do anything.
-That said, why is it "some cheap ghetto projects"? If, and I don't have the numbers from the various different settings' sections before the merger, activity continued as it used to, you'd have a nice hub of activity.
My apologies - wrong phrasing.
*They* merged the other campaign settings into one horrible mashed-up generic boards, and *you* continue to blindly defend the decision as if it were nothing but the best intentions despite many complaints otherwise.
And the "cheap ghetto projects" is just an exaggerated example to sum it up.
People claimed their "homes" were destroyed.
Your counter-argument was that their homes were still there - just different.
True indeed, and that's the comparison.
The individual homes for all the other worlds - places users were comfortable in - were destroyed to make one single mashed together board that only jumble things up, most likely in hopes that their continued fanbase would die out - just like their respective IP's which WoTC no longer cares about.
I'm afraid your nice upscale suburban home just got demolished - and replaced with practically condemned low-income cookie-cutter apartments.
The "homes" are still there - technically...... Just not so cozy anymore.
Is that a clearer way to phrase it for you?
It's no secret that the "defunct" worlds, as you called them, are of no concern to the "higher ups" - which is why the boards were mashed together - so they could be completely forgotten, since they are not up to "post count standards".
It's blatantly obvious that there was no real concern for the people who still did post on those boards - just pack them up and forget about them.
It's no so much the action itself, it's the lack of sympathy behind it.
And then when even more people leave due to being practically evicted, *you* and *they* point the finger and say "aaah! no one comes here anymore, see?".
If your (and this is the metaphorical "you", not "you" personally LK) fanbase gradually starts to purposely tell others to avoid your site, and then start to abandon the place like rats from a sinking ship, the fault is not with the fans, it's with the boards.
A fact which you seem to be forgetting.
Keeping already existing fans around is good for business, it's a proven fact.
Instead they just seem to be slowly, purposely driven away...
And that's not just pertaining to the boards, but to the entire D&D product marketing line in general.
Despite the low post counts here, many other (much better managed) fan-run boards for those "defunct" worlds are alive and thriving. (as are their "defunct" older rulesets which bring in no new revenue ;))
I'm amazed you - and more importantly, those that do make the decisions around here - don't think that's something to seriously wonder about.
Perhaps if the mods here focused on actually encouraging those fans to return, rather than pushing them farther away, things might seem more lively around here rather than just complaints.
I also apologize for my trolling comment - it was indeed out of line.
But when people here keep piling up all their complaints into a "stinking pile", and you repeatedly come in here and post, solely to turn a blind eye and claim you smell nothing but roses, it does start to seem a bit antagonizing.
Perhaps if the mods here focused and actually encouraging those fans to return, rather than pushing them farther away, things might seem more lively around here rather than just complaints.
See, that's just it though. I've come to believe that CM really doesn't have any interest in encouraging anything on these boards. CM just wants the people who come here to find forums that are busy enough but not too busy. If their decisions cause some people to leave, that's fine with them, because the people who left no longer factor into their decision-making.
It's almost like the people running the boards don't really care about the goals of the people writing and selling the books - some of whom might actually be interested in fostering and building the fan communities for currently out of print settings.
people who join in the future will not have known the "glory days", and as such, will not harbor any prejudices against the WotC boards for changing things, and so on and so on.
They deleted our forums less that six months ago and they are already being refered to the Glory Days
It's almost like the people running the boards don't really care about the goals of the people writing and selling the books - some of whom might actually be interested in fostering and building the fan communities for currently out of print settings.
This is one of the points I have been trying to make. The people running Wizards of the Coast do not care about the out of print settings. They do not make money. FR and EB make money. So even though Eberron is currently out of print and should be in here with us in the Other Published Worlds forum...they are not and will not.
It all boils down to money. Such is the way with corporate america. Lucky for me, Mystara has OldDawg,Thorf,Geoff,Havard,and many others to pick up the slack where wizards left off.
They deleted our forums less that six months ago and they are already being refered to the Glory Days
-For a lack of better terms, sure.
They deleted our forums less that six months ago and they are already being refered to the Glory Days
We have even seen the book that destroys the 4-Gotten Realms but 3.5 is the glory days
Darksun voting here.